Prolapse of the ovaries / by Paul F. Mundé.

  • Paul F. Mundé
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prolapse of the ovaries / by Paul F. Mundé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    came to me one day last spring, after an absence of several months (during which she had been in excellent health), with the following history : Feeling perfectly well, and finding some discomfort in her marital relations from the broad bulb retroversion pessary which I had introduced, she removed it, and continued quite well until recently. During the past two weeks, however, she had experienced very peculiar nervous and cerebral sensations, similar to those felt by her when she was suffering from membranous dysmenorrhea, such as pain in the vertex and occiput, irritability, general malaise, distaste for her household duties, low spirits, etc. Although feeling perfectly well locally, sh£ had finally yielded to the solicitations of her husband to come to the city and consult me, feeling (as she said) that something must be wrong with her sexual organs. I could not see in her symptoms any such indication, and was more inclined to think of malaria, a disease not unknown in the portion of New Jersey where she lived. However, to make sure, I acceded to her wish that I should examine her. On passing my finger to the posterior cul-de-sac, my first impression was that the old retroversion had returned, but as a retroflexion, for, immediately behind the uterus, and apparently connected with it, I found a smooth body similar to the fundus. This was quite tender, more so than the retroflexed fundus uteri ordinarily is; be¬ sides, a peculiar, velvety feel of the body made me suspect that it might be, not the body of the uterus, but an enlarged ovary. The sensitiveness of the patient prevented my as¬ suring myself of this fact by bimanual palpation ; I there¬ fore introduced the sound, and found it to pass straight upward, leaving the posterior body unchanged. Only when the uterus was anteverted did this body slightly leave the floor of the pelvis. There could now be no doubt that it was the ovary, enlarged to the size of a hen’s egg, and I ex¬ pressed my surprise to my patient at this new phenomenon, which I knew had not existed when I last saw her, or, in¬ deed, at any time since she had been under my care (she had formerly had some chronic ovaritis, but it had latterly given her no trouble). The lady then told me that she had
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