The Philadelphia practice of midwifery / by Charles D. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Charles D. (Charles Delucena), 1792-1869.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Philadelphia practice of midwifery / by Charles D. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The Fallopian Tubes are membranous canals, designed to convey the fecundated ovule or germ from the ovarium into the womb. They spring from the latter body at its upper an- gles, one from each angle. The other extremity of the Fallo- pian tube, called fimbria, or morsus diaboli, liies loose in the cavity of the pelvis while in a relaxed state, but when excited by the venereal orgasm it becomes erected, and is then directed towards the ovarium, the surface of which (in inferior animals) it has been seen to grasp tenaciously, for a period of time not yet determined. A communication is in this way established from the ovary to the womb through the tube, and the fecun- dated germ passes, by some unexplained mechanism of vital action, from its nidus in the ovary to the uterine cavity, in which its subsequent growth is to take place, until the birth of the child. — A The Ovaria are two small compressed oval bodies, one of which is found on each side of the womb, attached to its angles by a footstalk called the ligament of the ovary. Each ovary lies behind the Fallopian tube, and like it is enclosed betwixt the folds of the peritoneum, as it passes from the sides of the uterus in its progress towards the lateral parts of the pelvis, under the title of the broad ligaments. The peritoneum gives to the ovarium its outer coat, which invests its peculiar coat or capsule inside of which is contained a condensed cellular tissue en- closing, as in a gangue or matrix, several small translucent glo- bules. These globules are the germina or rudiments of embryos. Some of them are very near the superficies of the ovary, and others are buried deep within its texture. When fecundated these ovules, called also Graafian vesicles, are removed from the ovary by unknown processes; and, after passing through the canal of one of the Fallopian tubes, are deposited in the cavity of the womb, in order there to undergo the changes that are described under the head of Pregnancy. When a Graafian vesicle leaves the ovarium, there remains in that body a yellow- ish red spot, which, from its colour, has received the appellation of corpus luteum. In process of time the corpus luteum disap- pears, and a cicatricula only remains to indicate the original seat of the unfecundated ovule.