An appendix to a paper on the nervous ganglia of the uterus, with a further account of the nervous structures of that organ / by Robert Lee.

  • Lee Robert, 1793-1877.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appendix to a paper on the nervous ganglia of the uterus, with a further account of the nervous structures of that organ / by Robert Lee. 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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    t ] XI. An Appendix to a Paper on the Nervous Ganglia of the Uterus, with a further Account of the Nervous Structures of that Organ. Bp Robert Lee, M.D., F.R.S., Coll. Reg. Med. Socius. Received June 16,—Read June 16, 1842. From the functions of the human uterus, Galen inferred that it must be supplied with nerves, but there is no evidence to prove that Galen, or any of the celebrated anatomists who flourished before the middle of the eighteenth century, ever traced the great sympathetic and sacral nerves into the uterus, or discovered that its nerves enlarge during pregnancy. This was first done by Dr. W. Hunter, who describes the hypogastric nerve on each side as passing to the gravid uterus, behind the hypogastric vessels, and spreading out in branches like the portio dura of the seventh pair, or like the sticks of a fan, with many communications over the whole side of the uterus and vagina. As Dr. Hunter never examined the nerves of the unimpregnated uterus, and saw the nerves of the gravid uterus dissected only in one subject, he did not certainly know that they increased after conception. “ I cannot,” he observes, “ take upon me to say what change happens to the system of uterine nerves from utero-gestation, but I suspect them to be enlarged in proportion as the vessels*.” Mr. John Hunter denied that the nerves of the uterus ever enlarged during preg- nancy. “The uterus in the time of pregnancy,” he says, “ increases in substance and size, probably fifty times beyond what it naturally is, and yet we find that the nerves of this part are not in the smallest degree increased. This shows that the brain and nerves have nothing to do with the actions of a part, while the vessels which are evident increase in proportion to the increased size ; if the same had taken place with the nerves, we should have reasoned from analogy-f-.” Dr. William Hunter left no preparations of the nerves of the uterus, nor did Mr. J. Hunter, in support of their conflicting statements, and at the beginning of the year 1838 I believe there were no preparations in this country, showing the nerves of the uterus dissected, either in the unimpregnated or gravid state. Sir Astley Cooper then maintained, that it was impossible for the nerves of the uterus, or the nerves of any other organ, to increase under any circumstances. In 1822 Professor Tiedemann published a description of the nerves of the uterus with two engravings. In the first, the spermatic nerves are represented on both sides accompanying the spermatic arteries to the ovaria. The spermatic veins, and the * An Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus. Lond. 1794, p. 21. t The works of J. Hunter, vol. iii. p. 117. A.D. 1837.