Roy W. Bonsnes

The leucocytes during pregnancy.

Abstract The findings, all evaluated statistically, with respect to the total white, neutrophil, and lymphocyte counts during normal pregnancy are in agreement with those published already, i.e., there is a leucocytosis, due mainly to a neutrophilia during pregnancy and labor with labor characterized by a more marked leucocytosis and neutrophilia, and also a lymphocytopenia. However, a significant lymphocytosis, not described previously, is observed during the last three weeks of pregnancy. A significant increase in the number of leucocytes and neutrophils and a significant decrease in the lymphocytes are noted during severe pre-eclampsia and eclampsia but not during mild pre-eclampsia. Eosinophil counts during pregnancy average 119 per cubic millimeter with a standard deviation of the mean of plus or minus 74 in 74 patients (one count per patient per pregnancy) throughout pregnancy, 113 plus or minus 103 in 19 patients in their last weeks of pregnancy compared to a value of 124 plus or minus 21 in 21 nonpregnant normal women. In these women the eosinophil count seems to be a function of their cycle. None of these values are significantly different. The monocytes throughout pregnancy average 5.4 per cent with a standard deviation of the mean of plus or minus 2.2 per cent and during late pregnancy, 4.9 plus or minus 2.9 per cent, compared with 6.1 plus or minus 2.2 per cent in normal nonpregnant women. The average value observed during late pregnancy is significantly different from that observed in the nonpregnant control.

Oxytocin and milk ejection.

Abstract 1. 1. Oxytocin isolated from the posterior pituitary gland free of any detectable amount of vasopressin and by available physical and chemical criteria essentially a pure chemical compound has milk-ejection activity in recently parturient women who have milk in their breasts. 2. 2. A synthetic octapeptide amide, in so far as has been tested, indistinguishable from naturally occurring oxytocin in other properties, has milk-ejection activity in similar puerperal women indistinguishable from the naturally occurring oxytocin, thus affording conclusive proof that oxytocin has both oxytocic and milk-ejection activities inherent in its molecular structure. 3. 3. Milk ejection occurs consistently in these women when approximately 0.5 unit of oxytocin is administered intravenously, or when 2 units of oxytocin are administered intramuscularly.

Late postpartum eclampsia

Abstract Postpartum eclampsia may occur at any time during the first week of the puerperium. Three cases of late postpartum eclampsia are presented, one occurring on the fourth, one on the sixth, and one on the eighth day following delivery. Each of these showed most of the typical clinical and laboratory findings of eclampsia, namely, hypertension, albuminuria, edema, convulsions, elevated blood uric and decreased CO 2 combining power, decreased uric acid clearance and decreased urinary output, followed by a complete return to normal after the eclampsia, with the single exception of persistent hypertension in one of the three patients.