On the nature of various substances formed in or discharged from the uterus and vagina / by Arthur Farre. No. I., On exfoliation of the epithelial coat of the vagina, producing casts of that canal, with remarks on the true form of the vagina.

  • Arthur Farre
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature of various substances formed in or discharged from the uterus and vagina / by Arthur Farre. No. I., On exfoliation of the epithelial coat of the vagina, producing casts of that canal, with remarks on the true form of the vagina. 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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    characteristic of ordinary dysmenorrhceal membranes. Like the other specimens this cast consists of nothing but tessellated epithelium. But the most important and interesting feature is observed in the upper part of this specimen (fig. 3). Here is seen a cup- like depression, having in its centre a transverse cleft, exactly corresponding in size and position with the two lips of the cervix, separated by the os uteri. So that in this well as in that represented by figs. 1 and 2, not only the entire epithelial lining of the vagina, but that portion of epithelium also which covers the part of the cervix uteri that projects into the v-gina, commonly termed the vaginal portion, has been exfoliated and expelled in one mass. It is also interesting to observe that this process of desquam- mation has not in some of these cases been limited to a single act of exfoliation, but has been evidently repeated at intervals; for in two of the instances here given distinct traces of a second set of membranes were found enclosed within the first; and this fact illustrates, in a remarkable manner, the statement made in the history of the last case, namely, that the peculiar crawling sensation experienced in the first attack, which was relieved by vaginal injections, came on again at the next menstrual pe- riod, when the two casts were expelled, one contained within the other. The specimens here described are instructive in another and different point of view, as displaying the real form of the vagina, when in its ordinary state of vacuity and collapse. Being actual casts of that canal they may help to correct the conventional notions of its form which the ordinary representations in obste- tric and other works are apt to give. For the vagina is not in its normal state an intestiniform tube' of four or five inches in length, which is probably the general notion of it, although, from its great elasticity and capability of both elongation and lateral distention, it may be made to take various forms, so that it adapts itself alike to the ordinary tubular speculum and to almost any form of pessary, whether globular, oval, or elip- soidal. In spirit preparations, also, as found in anatomical museums, an unnatural form is often given to the tube by dis- tention of it before mounting: but if the vagina is examined in situ, just as Kohlrausch has represented it in his admirable sectional view of the female pelvis and its contents, of their natural size,* it will be found to be a short flattened canal, the * Zur Anatomie und Physiologie der Beckonorgane, von Dr. 0. Kohlrausch. Leipzig, 1854. This is the only view of the female pelvic viscera with which I am acquainted giving an accurate idea of the actual form and dimensions of the vagina.
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