An inquiry into the pathological importance of ulceration of the os uteri : being the Croonian lectures for the year 1854 / by Charles West.

  • West, Charles, 1816-1898.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the pathological importance of ulceration of the os uteri : being the Croonian lectures for the year 1854 / by Charles West. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    delay you with some further preliminary considerations touch- ing the structure and the functions of the womb ; though my doing so might perhaps be justified on the plea of the desirableness that we should, before entering on an exa- mination of conflicting opinions, ascertain what facts are accepted as true on either side. But there is another reason for this course, in the circumstance that the womb presents peculiarities of situation, structure, and function, such as render it probable that the diseases of the organ may likewise exhibit distinctive features, and possible that their cure may call for modes of treatment which otherwise would not be expedient, nor even justifiable. Now, it would not be easy to imagine a state of things more favourable to the occurrence of ailments dependent on venous congestion, or in which those ailments would be more difficult to remove, or more apt to return, than is ob- served in the case of the uterus during the whole period of activity of the generative powers. The return of blood from the organ, which is rendered difficult by its situation at the lowest part of the trunk, is still further impeded by the absence of valves from its veins; while every month, for several days together, this organ and its appendages are the parts towards which blood flows in superabundant streams. During this period, the natural secretion from the uterus and Fallopian tubes is much increased; the epi- thelium covering their surface is detached, and reproduced again and again ; haemorrhage breaks forth along the whole tract,—and it is not until this has continued for some days, that the congestion ceases and the parts subside once more into their former state of quiescence,—the uterus remaining, however, for a short time heavier, and its tissue looser, and more abundantly supplied with blood, than it was before. I need not stop to tell how a slight cause may protract this haemorrhage, or how some accident may check it; nor need