Volume 2

System of gynecology / by American authors ; edited by Matthew D. Mann.

Date:
1887-1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: System of gynecology / by American authors ; edited by Matthew D. Mann. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    21/1203
    THE DISEASES OF THE VAGINA. By CHARLES CARROLL LEE, A.M., M.D., Nkw Yohk. In this article the inflammatory and other diseases of the vagina, inchiding neoplasms, which the practitioner is called upon to treat will be described in full, and the more important congenital and traumatic lesions, excepting fistula, Avill be treated under their appropriate heads, AKATOarY.^—The vagina is a musculo-membranous canal Avhich extends upward and forward from the vulva to the cervix uteri, which its upper extremity embraces. Its average length is 3.1 inches along the anterior wall, 3.9 inches along the posterior wall; its diameter varies from 1.3 to 2.6 inches. Its general shape has been compared by Savage^ to that of a flexible tube diminished to nearly half its length by a string passed through one of its sides from end to end. The tense and slightly projecting ridge thus formed in front is called the antei'ior column of the vagina, and constitutes the vesico-vaginal septum. Its tension causes the surface to be thrown into transverse folds or rugse. The posterior column consists of a less defined ridge running up the centre of the posterior wall. The walls, which are very elastic and distensible, are composed of three distinct coats or layers: 1, an external coat of fibrous elastic tissue, ■with connective tissue; 2, a middle coat of unstriped muscular fibres, longitudinal superficially, and extending from the external layer of the muscular coat of the cervix uteri, with which they are continuous, to the front of the ischio-pubic rami: beneath these is a layer of interlacing fibres, forming what Prof Charpenticr calls a plexiform network3, an internal or superficial coat of mucous membrane, ]>ink or reddish in color, about one-fifth of an inch thick, intinjately united with the mus- cular coat, and covered with strata of pavement epithelium, which over- lies its papilla2 and muciparous glands. Sappcy and C. Robin have fiiiled to find these glands, and deny their existence, but Huschka and Farre have discovered them in great numbers. The vaginal arteries and arterioles are derived from th(! internal pudic, the vesical, and from the hypogastric through the vaginal branch of the uterine. The veins * See also article on Anatomy in Vol. I. Aimlomij of Female Pelvic Organs, London, 1870.