A practical treatise on inflammation of the uterus, its cervix and appendages : and on its connexion with uterine disease / by James Henry Bennet.

  • Bennet, James Henry, 1816-1891.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on inflammation of the uterus, its cervix and appendages : and on its connexion with uterine disease / by James Henry Bennet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    turies, until M. Beeamier, (one of the present physicians to the Hotel Dieu in Paris,) about the year 1818, fortunately for humanity, revived the use of the speculum, and by its means resuscitated the knowledge so long dormant. The late celebrated surgeon, Lisfranc, at once adopted the speculum as a means of diagnosis and treatment, and by his lectures, writings, and practice, contributed more than any other of his countrymen to establish uterine pathology on a sound practical basis. I cannot better illustrate how totally, in this country, the important pathological data, which it will be my aim to elucidate, had been lost sight of, than by recalling the very striking fact, that inflammatory ulceration of the uterine neck and its sequelae are not even alluded to in the work which for the last thirty years has been considered the standard authority on uterine diseases, and the talented author of which occupies the very first rank among our uterine pathologists. I allude to Sir Charles Clarke's Treatise on Female Discharges, the third edition of which was published in 1831. Various forms of cancerous ulceration are carefully described, but the very existence of inflamma- tory ulceration is not mentioned. Xow when we reflect that, as I shall hereafter show, in nearly five cases out of six of uterine disease, in which chronic discharges, mucous, puriform, or sanguinolent, or other well-marked uterine symptoms, are present, there is inflammatory ulceration of the cervix, it is easy to conceive how erroneous must be the views respecting uterine pathology, of a medical school ignorant of so vitally important a circumstance. The surprise which we must feel on learning that so much valuable information respecting female diseases was lost to humanity for so lengthened a period, diminishes, however, when we reflect on the channels through which the knowledge of the ancients has been con- veyed to us. When Europe was plunged in the intellectual darkness that followed the overthrow of the Roman empire by the barbarians, Science found a refuge among the Arabs, and it was through their labours, principally, that the Greek and Roman medical classics were preserved, and became known to their successors in science, the Roman catholic priesthood. On the revival of letters taking place, several centuries after the overthrow of the Arabian caliphs, all the knowledge of the day, of medicine as well as of the other arts and sciences which constituted the Quadriviura, was confined to priests and monks. Both the Arabian physicians and the Roman catholic priests were placed in a position of peculiar delicacy towards their female patients; the former, owing to the seclusion of the female enforced by Moham- medan customs, and the latter, owing to their vows of celibacy. It is not, therefore, extraordinary that the Arabians should merely have transmitted to us in their works the information respecting uterine diseases and midwifery contained in the Greek and Latin authors whom they translated or copied ; nor is it extraordinary that the Roman catholic priesthood should have abandoned midwifery to midwives, and have allowed the practical knowledge of uterine diseases contained in