An anatomical description of the human gravid uterus and its contents / by the late William Hunter.

  • William Hunter
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An anatomical description of the human gravid uterus and its contents / by the late William Hunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    monly contains a child and placenta at least twice as large in one case as it does in another, and frequently at the least six or eight times more water, besides the variety of size from there being one child only, or twins, fyc. The size of the uterus appears to depend upon the quantity of the liquor amnii principally; for though women who have twins, or a very large child, are commonly observed to he very big, yet the greatest number of those who are really very much swelled out, are so only from a vast quantity of water. In such cases there is frequently but one child, and that, very often, a small one. FIGURE OF THE UTERUS. The general figure of the uterus is oviform, the fundus an- swering to the largest extremity of the egg, and the cervix and os uteri to the small end; but the fundus is larger and more flat, or less pointed, in proportion to the lower extremity of the uterus, than one end of an egg is to the other; and the whole uterus seems more or less compressed, so as to be broader from right to left than it is from the fore part back- wards. Besides these more constant deviations, the figure of the uterus differs from the regular oviform from a variety of accidental causes, as it adapts itself to the neighbouring parts, to the attitude of the body, and to the position of the contained child. In order to conceive these varieties more easily, we must remember that in most cases the uterus is not so com- pletely filled as to be upon the full stretch. Were it out of the body, and filled artificially, it would easily contain more than it actually does; thus the uterus, like a bladder of water not quite full, is plastic, and moulds itself into various shapes from accidental circumstances. As the surrounding parts resist the pressure or weight of the uterus unequally, according to their different natures, the uterus swells out in some places, whilst in others it is pressed
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