On the so-called fatty degeneration of the placenta / by James M. Cowan.

  • Cowan, James Moffat.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the so-called fatty degeneration of the placenta / by James M. Cowan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    in thickness where it overlapped the lobes. This membrane was white in colour, and of a hard and compact consistence. Its structure was cellular and nearly tendinous. To in- flammation he imputes its origin. It may be added, the placenta was non-adherent to the uterus. Albrechtus writes “ he has seen small tumours scattered throughout the sub- stance of the placenta, of a whitish colour, and closely re- sembling scirrhous glands. And Mauriceau, in his book on Midwifery, gives several cases of placentae he calls “ scir- rhous, ” or “ affected with chronic inflammation.” As to the signification to be attached to the term “ scir- rhousas used by these authors in their description of morbid conditions of the placenta, it may be stated that, primitively and etymologically, nothing is intended to be implied by the term, beyond a certain physical quality, viz. hardness. It was only as pathological science advanced, hardness being found a constant and most striking property of certain mor- bid growths which were coincident with a cachectic state of the system, and shewed a peculiar tendency to invade all neighbouring tissues, that “ scirrhous” came to be applied to and associated in every person’s mind with a growth of a mail moris or malignant character. Now-a-days, when one speaks of a scirrhous tumour, he usually means cancer. Formerly every tumour, provided it was possessed of a cer- tain degree of hardness, received the same appellation. This opinion seems to derive some support from the expe- rience of the present day, for wre know that if there is any organ of the body more than another exempt from malig- nant disease, it is the placenta. I believe it possible to af- firm, without the slightest risk of error, that cancer of the placenta is a lesion never met with, at all events so rare as to be unworthy of consideration. In Dupuytren’s Museum at Paris, there is a preparation labelled “ cancerous tumour of the placenta.” No account is given of any examina- tion this tumour has been submitted to, and to me I confess it seemed nothing else but a 'considerably hypertrophied placenta deprived of its blood by long maceration in spirits. Pathologists of more modern times, and some even of the present day, have attempted to defend the inflammatory view of this lesion on the grounds of the microscopic appear- ances ; the oleo-albuminous granules they regard as arising from an exudation of liquor sanguinis from the interior of the bloodvessels; these bodies in short they consider as diag- nostic of an inflammatory lesion. I hope to shew immediately this opinion is based upon very limitc\d pathological obser- vation, and that these same granules, in place of being met