On the causes and treatment of abortion and sterility : being the result of an extended practical inquiry into the physiological and morbid conditions of the uterus, with reference especially to leucorrhoeal affections and the diseases of menstruation / by James Whitehead.

  • Whitehead, James, 1812-1885.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the causes and treatment of abortion and sterility : being the result of an extended practical inquiry into the physiological and morbid conditions of the uterus, with reference especially to leucorrhoeal affections and the diseases of menstruation / by James Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    61/382 (page 51)
    one inch and three quarters. Each horn had a rounded extremity, was semi-transparent and fibrinous, and terminated at the corres- ponding Fallopian orifice. The Fallopian tubes were perfectly empty, and of the natural dimensions. The right ovarium was a little larger than the left, and presented several distinct cicatrices in different stages of reparation. One of these was recent, depressed, puckered, and appeared at first sight to have an opening in its centre; but it was afterwards found to be impervious. The cavity over which this was situated was occupied by a firm, reddish coagulum, traversed by yellow stria?, having an irregularly concentrical arrange- ment. Immediately beneath the next most distinct cicatrix was a firm yellow body, smaller in size than the preceding, and less striated. Another paler formation of a similar kind, but still smaller and more deeply seated, and marked by a faint indentation of the surface above it, was observed in the same ovary. There were also two vesicles of different sizes containing a thinnish glairy fluid, one of which was near the surface. The left ovarium presented on one of its sides a large bluish vesi- cle, projecting its peritoneal covering considerably above the sur- rounding surface; this was the size of a small hazel nut, and con- tained apparently nothing but serum. Two smaller vesicles more deeply seated, and two well-marked yellow bodies of different dimensions having corresponding cicatrices, were also observed in the same ovary. The labia and cervix uteri were perfectly healthy. The inner surface of the uterus presented numerous openings scattered over every part of it, obvious to the naked view, some being sufficiently large to admit a good-sized bristle, or the end of a lachrymal probe. The largest and most numerous were at each side of the fundus near the horns of the uterus, and at the contracted part of its body near the commencement of the cervix. The openings had ;i val- vular arrangement, a great number passing downwards towards the cervix, while those at the upper part of the organ appeared to pass towards the Fallopian orifices. The preceding case is interesting in a physiological point of view : 1st, in indicating the precise part of the uterus whence the dis- charge issued, and inferentially also the part which commonly fur- nishes the catamenial product; there being no doubt that the blood, the loss of which occasioned the death of the patient, escaped entirely from the openings now noticed ; and that the hceraorrha^c