A review of the present state of uterine pathology / by James Henry Bennet.

  • Bennet, James Henry, 1816-1891.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A review of the present state of uterine pathology / by James Henry Bennet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    danger of the numerical method, when incautiously applied to vital symptoms and conditions, and to the results of treatment. There may he such a fallacy, such a source of error, which mis- leads the unwary, and which can only be detected by those who have had extensive experience, and who are led by this expe- rience to question what the figures announce, and to look for the source of error. The doctrine which Dr. West teaches with reference to the treatment of inflammatory ulceration of the neck of the uterus —viz., that it rarely calls for special treatment, appears to me most deplorable, for if it were adopted, most of the patholo- gical discoveries made in this direction would become positively fruitless, and women would be left to suffer as of old. I can- not, however, discuss the question on the confined basis on which Dr. West has placed it; I must be allowed to throw into the scale all the inflammatory lesions which constitute so large a part of what he makes his antagonistic group. I must have the inflammatory congestions, the chronic inflammatory indura- tions of the os, of the cervix, and of the uterus, &c, and this will leave but little behind. That given, the questions to examine will be—Firstly, are these lesions connected with the general break-down of the health so constantly observed in the patients presenting them ? Secondly, is then' removal neces- sary for the recovery of health ? Thirdly, can they be removed without resorting to instrumental and surgical means of treat- ment ? I have not the slightest hesitation in answering the two first questions affirmatively, and the third negatively, on the ground both of my own individual experience and of that of other pathologists. That the local lesions and the break-down of health are con- nected is evident from their very general co-existence; and that the entire removal of the local mischief is necessary for the per- manent recovery of health, is a fact of which I every day become more convinced. For many years I have been living amongst a population of invalids, presenting the two conditions. Before they apply to me they have generally exhausted, during years, all the resources of medical science, and have enjoyed every