Sterility in woman : causes, treatment, and illustrative cases / by Mary A. Dixon Jones.

  • Jones, Mary Amanda Dixon, 1828-1908.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sterility in woman : causes, treatment, and illustrative cases / by Mary A. Dixon Jones. 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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    “the good woman of Shunem” with the best of all riches, it was prom- ised that she should “embrace a son.” “She had no child, and her husband was old.” A poor dispensary patient said : “Life was nothing without chil- dren.” A lady of wealth, now past sixty years of age, still grieves that she has no child on which to lavish the wealth of her love. Women want these blessings. They long for these sweet little birds of Paradise, even though they have no nest, no resting-place, nor any way to make them comfortable ;* women of countless wealth would exchange all for the sake of one little child of their own. I have heard the moan from the depths of the human heart. Do we wonder? Alas, alas! they lose life’s greatest joy. Causes of Sterility.—Among the recognized causes of infertility in woman are : I. Stenosis of the Os Uteri.—This in many instances has been the barrier that has prevented happiness, and caused heart-aching disap- pointment. From a very early period stenosis has been recognized as a cause of sterility. More than four thousand years ago the early Egyptians studied it, and he, who was “learned in all their wisdom,” repeatedly speaks of the mouth of the womb being closed, tells how all the wombs of the house of Abimelech were “fast closed.” Medical writers of almost every age have referred to it, and eminent surgeons have directed their best efforts to relieve the defect or correct the mal- formation. Henry von Roonhyse, in his “ Medico-Chirurgical Observa- ations,” quaintly describes the difficulty, saying: “The neck of the womb is very narrow, hardened, and tapering out, and comes to be shut very close, and even so close that a thin stiletto will not pass into the bottom of the womb ; by which infirmity the womb remains shut, the neck comes to be swollen together.” The same writer speaks of a cure by the “violence of the knife;” and in 1650, Joannis Schultetus, in his “Instrumentorium Chirurgi- corium,” pictures a uterotome, copied probably from some prior work, or more ancient record, for, at a very early period surgery was resorted to for relief. In modern times probably the first to popularize surgical procedures for stenosis and flexion was Sir James Y. Simpson, of Edin- *“Who does not recollect the touching story of the little deformed woman as reported by Dr. I. E. Taylor, at the New York Obstetrical Society. She was four feet four and one-half inches. Five years previously she had been delivered by cran- iotomy of a child that weighed eleven pounds. Again becoming pregnant, she determined to take whatever risks might be necessary for the sake of having a living child, facing the dangers of a Ctesarian section, even when told her chances were only fifty per cent. We equally admire her desire for children, her dauntless courage, and her more than ordinary heroism.