A case in which ovariotomy was twice successfully performed on the same patient / by T. Spencer Wells.

  • Wells, Spencer, 1818-1897.
Date:
[1867]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case in which ovariotomy was twice successfully performed on the same patient / by T. Spencer Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    left the hospital four weeks after the operation, and returned to the country in good health. About twenty-two pints of fluid were evacuated at the operation, and the more solid remainder of the tumour weighed about seven pounds. The following description of this part of the tumour is by the late Dr. C. G. Ritchie. “ The great bulk of the tumour is made up of five or six large cavities, whose dissepiments have been cut through or torn through during the operation. The walls of these cysts are from half an inch to two inches thick, but they owe their thickness entirely to the presence of innumerable vesicles, some of which are of the size of a pea, others that of a pippin. The vesicles are for the most part diaphanous, but in almost every one of them is to be observed a white streak, which examination shows to be contained in the jelly-like contents and not in the translucent wall. Some of the cysts, instead of being diaphanous, are quite white; the contained fluid in these has much the appearance of milk. Some of the cysts are set so closely together that they considerably modify the shape the one of the other; others, again, are solitary and spherical. The outer tunic of the tumour is of course peritoneal; it is marked with traces of inflammatory adhesions. The remains of the pedicle consist of a double layer of broad ligament, of the ovarian vessels, and the Fallopian tube.” The patient remained extremely well for more than a year after the first operation. On the 14th of February last she wrote to me as follows: “A year having elapsed since my operation, I am thankful to tell you that I am quite strong again, and have never taken any medicine since I left the hospital. I am a wonder to myself when I consider how dangerously ill I was.” I did not hear of her after this until she came to town and called on me, on the 6th of August, when I found a semi-solid tumour of the right ovary, reach¬ ing up to the false ribs on the right side, in the centre to two inches above the umbilicus, and extending towards the left side half way between the umbilicus and anterior superior spine of the ilium. The uterus was freely moveable.