Outlines of the principal diseases of females : Chiefly for the use of students / By Fleetwood Churchill.

  • Churchill, Fleetwood, 1808-1878.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of the principal diseases of females : Chiefly for the use of students / 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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    participate in all the more acute disorders of each. There is no doubt that they may, and often are, diseased independently, but it is scarcely recognisable during life;1 as, from their position, any symptoms to which they give rise will indubitably be attributed to an affection of their more important neighbours. When they are affected in common with these organs, their symptoms form a small part of the aggregate, and are so masked by the greater disturbance, that the morbid changes going on in them are only discovered after death. Very few of these disorders happen before the occurrence of utero-gestation. In consequence of this obscurity in diagnosis, little more can be attempted than to give a catalogue of the diseases, with such practical observations as may be necessary. It is worthy of remark, that the appropriate treatment of this class of disorders does not depend upon our distinguishing them from affections of the uterus or ovaries. In each, the remedies are nearly the same. 1. The fallopian tubes may be attacked by acute inflammation, generally by an extension of the disease from the uterus or perito- neum, in one or other variety of puerperal, but sometimes as an idiopathic affection,2 in consequence of suppressed catamenia or lochia (Davis). and fluctuating when pressed, and which contains a quantity of serous fluid. In some cases it is an albuminous or puriform fluid, and the membranous sides are, in these instances, very much thickened ; the internal surface covered with a tenacious or floccy albuminous substance, the removal of which exposes an inflamed and somewhat softened surface. 3. The fimbria preternaturally florid, and loaded with vessels filled with blood. 4. A total destruction of the fimbriae, without any other morbid appear- ance.—Hooper's Morbid Anat. of the Human Uterus, p. 3. 1 After speaking of the leading affections of these tubes, Dr. R. Lee remarks, All these affections produce barrenness, but there are no symp- toms by which we can positively know their existence during life.—Cycl. of pract. Med. vol. iv. p. 577. 2 The following case from Boivin and Duges is very instructive:— Mad'lle. B. aged twenty-three years of age, had been 'regular' from her fourteenth to her twentieth year, when she was attacked several times with inflammation of the lower part of the abdomen, which was removed by leeches. Sharp and frequent pains continued, however, in the hips, on each side, particularly in the region of the sacrum ; there was also habitual constipation. This state of things was succeeded by irritation of the thorax, accompanied with heat, hoarseness, and frequent cough: the catamenia became less abundant and irregular in their return; the affection proceeded very rapidly, and the patient died in six months. Post mortem examinatin.—There were adhesions between the uterus and rectum, and also tubercles in the uterine parietes. ''The right fallopian tube was of a blight red colour, obliterated at its two extremities, the fimbria! of its pavilion entirely effaced; it contained a viscid, reddish, and puriform fluid. The right ovarium was Adherent to the tube by newly formed membranes; it was small, soli, opening in different directions, and presented a fleshy tissue, of a bright red colour, uniform, and without the ■lightest vesicles. On the same side appeared, in the form of the corolla of a convolvulus, the remains of a red solid cyst, which opened into the cavity of the abdomen, and was probably of the size of a walnut. The left