Ovarian tumors : their pathology, diagnosis, and treatment, especially by ovariotomy / by E. Randolph Peaslee.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ovarian tumors : their pathology, diagnosis, and treatment, especially by ovariotomy / by E. Randolph Peaslee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    seldom attain sucli a size as to render them recognizable during life, and do not require any surgical interference. They are, however, far more frequently found in post-mortem examina- tions than any other form of ovarian cyst. Often not larger than a cherry, they are sometimes of the size of the fist, or even of a child's head. They occur in children, even in the new-born, and in adults, and single or plural in both. They have smooth, thin, almost non-vascular walls, and contain a clear, serous fluid, resembling blood-serum. The preceding facts suggest the idea that this form of cyst is merely an ovisac over-distended by its normal contents ab- normally increased in quantity. In the adult female, any ovisac containing a ripe ovum would thus become a cyst, if its rupture was by any agency prevented. Hokitansky has demonstrated the origin of the cysts under consideration, by finding the ova, though in but a single instance in which the cysts were no larger than a cherry. That they occur in the new-born, also, is not surprising, since it has been seen (p. 8) that imperfectly-developed ovisacs exist in immense numbers at birth, though the ova are still incomplete, and there- fore cannot be found even in small cysts. But, even as they occur in the adult, it is not to be expected that so delicate a structure as the ovum would long be preserved, or, if so, could be found in a large amount of fluid. Hence ova have been found in the adult only in cases of very small cysts. A distinction has been attempted between hydrops folliculi and hydrops ovarii, which is, however, of no practical impor- tance. Eindfleisch remarks that the usual hydrops ovarii be- longs to another category, since here neoplasms occur belonging to an entirely different method of development; for it results in an ovisac containing the usual cell-mass of the membrana granulosa and the ovum, from an accumulation of a larger quantity of albuminous fluid, and which is here from the begin- ning serous, and not mucous. The ovum afterward perishes, and its disintegration can be plainly seen. First the outer por- tion, the protoplasm-mass, is dissolved into a softer substance, which is easily crushed, and finally entirely liquefies. Then nothing remains but a simple serous sac (p. 446). Thus hydrops ovarii, if the distinction be retained, is pri-