Essays on the puerperal fever and other diseases peculiar to women : Selected from the writings of British authors previous to the close of the eighteenth century / Ed. by Fleetwood Churchill.
- Fleetwood Churchill
- Date:
- 1849
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Essays on the puerperal fever and other diseases peculiar to women : Selected from the writings of British authors previous to the close of the eighteenth century / Ed. by Fleetwood Churchill. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
537/580 page 525
![III.—DR. CLARKE ON CAULIFLOWER EXCRESCENCE FROM THE OS UTERI.1 The object of the present communication is to give some account of a disease not hitherto described, as far as I know, by any writer on the diseases of the female organs of generation, or in any book on morbid anatomy, though it is far from being uncommon.2 From its external form and structure in the living body, I have for many years been accustomed to describe it, in my lectures, under the name of the cauliflower excrescence of the os uteri, meaning to distinguish it from other diseases of structure of this part of the body, but especially from cancer, with which disease it has generally been confounded. Having been for many years much consulted about the diseases of the female sex, I have been led to observe, that there is a great variety in the symptoms of diseases which pass under the common name of cancer. On accurately investigating, by examinations in the living body, the structure of different diseased parts, and connecting this with the variety in their 1 [On the Cauliflower Excrescence from the Os Uteri. By John Clarke, m.d. Read July 4, 1809. From the Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Surgical Knowledge, vol. hi, p. 321.] 2 [That this is the same disease as that described by Levret and Herbiniaux under the name of Vivaces, can scarcely be doubted. Dr. Gooch (Diseases of Women, p. 303) has exhibited in parallel columns the distinguishing characters of each as follows:— Vivaces. Cauliflower excrescence. A rough surface. A rough surface. Grows from a broad base. Grows from a broad base. A soft fungus. A congeries of vessels. If removed, grows again. If removed, grows again. The effect of death not observed. After death or a ligature, shrinks to an empty skin. Insensible. Insensible. Kills by frequent hemorrhages. Kills by frequent hemorrhages. Some objection has been raised to the name as being inaccurate, but if it be an advantage that a name should either express a very accurate pathological opinion or none, we must prefer the name given by Dr. John Clarke, as expressing no opinion upon a subject when a satisfactory one would be very difficult. The reader will find this disease ably treated of by Sir C. Clarke, Gooch, Duparcque, Lisfranc, Boivin and Duges, Blundell, Ashwell, Montgomery (Dublin Journal, vol. xxvi, p. 402), Lee, Simpson (Dublin Journal, Nov. 1846), &c.—Ed.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21030170_0537.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
