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 / [James Whitehead].

  • Whitehead, James, 1812-1885.
Date:
1847
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 / [James Whitehead]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    139/468 (page 103)
    owing its existence to want of harmony between the altered action of the organs immediately implicated, and the newly- awakened sympathies in parts contiguously or remotely con¬ nected with them. Or, the organs of generation, as respects the menstrual function, may, under some circumstances, remain perfectly quiescent after the physical indications of puberty have been fully accomplished, without producing, for a time, any prejudicial effect upon the general health. Such a state of the system is met with in persons where the vascular plethora finds relief through the medium of compensating discharges, occurring periodically, from some distant part of the body, constituting what is usually termed vicarious men¬ struation. These abnormal evacuations consist in bleeding from the nose, bronchial tubes, stomach, or bowels, or from the surface of an ulcer, or cavity of an abscess; and in tem¬ porary augmentation of a natural organic product, as nasal, bronchial, vaginal, or urethal catarrh, diuresis, diaphoresis, or colliquative diarrhoea. Lastly, the menstrual discharge may he inordinately pro¬ fuse, assuming often the character of an alarming hoemorr- hage, under which form it is recognized as menorrhagia, or more properly metrorrhagia. These five orders, into which the subject has been subdivided, comprehend the principal affections commonly known as the diseases of menstruation, each of which may be briefly exemplified in succession. Retention of the Menses. There are two forms under which amenorrhoea from re¬ tention, may manifest itself. The one, when the generative organs remain inactive after the physical developements of puberty have been perfected, and consequently, no fluid is secreted; the other, when the organic function is duly per¬ formed to a certain extent, hut the escape of the product is hindered by mechanical impediment. The latter condition.