A review of the present state of uterine pathology / by James Henry Bennet.

  • Bennet, James Henry, 1816-1891.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A review of the present state of uterine pathology / by James Henry Bennet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    56/152 page 44
    in the os and cervix uteri, the varying vascular and mechanical conditions of these parts in menstruation, coitus, pregnancy, and parturition, must of course be enumerated. Eruptive condi- tions of the cutaneous covering of the os uteri, in the shape of aphtha, herpes, or eczema, form another class of cervical dis- charge. Vaginitis may also extend upwards, and involve the os and cervix. In the above extract it will be observed that the morbidly increased cervical secretion is not given as the cause of inflam- mation, which secondarily induces ulceration, induration, &c, but as the essential disorder of which these lesions are the mor- bid conditions. Neither is the intervention of inflammation recognised in the enumeration of the other causes which pro- duce morbid changes in the os and cervix, except in the case of vaginitis extending to the cervix. Dr. Tyler Smith seems to have endeavoured to establish an union between the pathology of former days and the results of modern experience. Thus formerly it was thought that the discharges, be they mucous, purulent, or bloody, which issued from the female organs, were in a great measure the mere reflex of general and functional morbid conditions. The modes of investigation which are now adopted show the all but con- stant existence, in such cases, of local lesions. Dr. Smith evidently tries to combine the two by thus stating that, under the influence of both general and local causes, the cervical secre- tions become morbidly exaggerated and modified, without the intervention of inflammation, thus establishing what he terms Leucorrhoea. This new entity, this peculiar morbid state once admitted, it becomes the source of all evil, producing congestion, erosion, ulceration, hypertrophy, abortions, sterility—indeed, whatever mischief subsequently occurs, local or general, m the uterine organs ! Thus it is that we find him describing erosions, ulcerations, &c, not as inflammatory lesions, but merely as symptoms of leucorrhoea. This attempt to unite past and present pathology does not certainly appear to me calculated to overturn what Dr. Smith calls -The inflammation Theory. What are the lesions described in the extracts I have given—the congestions of the capillary
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