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.
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![IV._DR. CLARKE'S TWO CASES OF TUMOUR OF THE UTERUS, i Till of late years, the diseases of the uterus, and its appen- dages, have been very little known, and even the present stock of knowledge upon this subject is more confined than that of the diseases of most other parts of the body. The early stages of disease in these parts are generally passed over without examination, partly because the symptoms are slight, and partly because women (in this country at least) are unwilling to explain to medical men the disorders of the sexual organs. Besides, it has been but too common to prescribe for diseases of these parts, without making such examination as can alone throw light upon them; so that they have arrived often to a point at which no relief can be given, before their nature has been understood. As increased bulk and discharges of blood or other fluids are common to many of the diseases of the uterus, it is desirable that these diseases should be distinguished from each other. The late Dr. AVilliam Hunter rendered, as I conceive, a great service to society, in pointing out the difference between scirrhus of the uterus and the enlargement of this organ from tumours of another kind, to which he gave the name of the fleshy tubercle. 1 [Two Cases of Tumour of the Uterus. By John Clarke, m.d. Read December 6, 1808. (Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, vol. iii, p. 298.) The remarkable fact about the first of these cases is the rapid reproduction of the process, which was removed, and which is not common in tumours of so solid a character. The size of the tumour or polypus was doubtless great, but others as large are on record; I myself have seen a polypus at least twelve or fourteen inches long, by five inches diameter in the widest part. And, as in Dr. Clarke's case, I found, at first, the abdomen apparently filled by several tumours, which disappeared as the polypus was protruded. I removed the whole mass, which grew from the anterior half of the cervix, but the patient sank exhausted. The second case has many points of resemblance to the cauliflower excrescence in its growth and reproduction, in the watery discharge and hemorrhage to which it gives rise, and in its fatal termination from exhaustion. Whatever chance the patient may have from an operation in cauliflower excrescence, it is evident that in such a case as the present she would not have the slightest.—Ed.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21030170_0549.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
