A practical treatise on the diseases of women / by T. Gaillard Thomas.

  • Theodore Gaillard Thomas
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of women / by T. Gaillard Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    regarded as a secondary matter is really one of primary importance. For this reason no examination of the uterus should be considered complete which does not involve a careful investigation of the state of the ovaries. For many years a thorough sceptic as to the frequency of ovarian disorder as a cause of the ordinary symptoms of uterine disease, I am now convinced of its truth, and in few cases do I give more guarded prognoses than in those in which I find one or both ovaries enlarged, tender, and prolapsed. Since the year 1850, when he published his well known work upon the subject of Ovarian Inflammation, no one has been a more con- stant or consistent advocate of the claims of ovarian pathology upon the notice of the gynecologist than Dr. Tilt, of London. At a meeting of the London Obstetrical Society, in April of the present year, he recapitulated his views, and it cannot fail to be a matter of interest to see how time and experience have affected them. The positions which he originally took were these: 1st. That the recognized frequency of inflammatory lesions in the ovaries and in the tissues that surround them is of much greater practical import- ance than is generally admitted. 2d. That of all inflammatory lesions of the ovary those involving destruction to the whole organ are very rare, whilst the most numerous, and, therefore, the most important, may be ascribed to a disease that may be called either chronic or subacute ovaritis. 3d. That, as a rule, pelvic diseases of women radiate from morbid ovulation. 4th. That morbid ovulation is a most frequent cause of ovaritis. 5th. That ovaritis frequently causes pelvic peritonitis. 6th. That blood is frequently poured out from the ovary and the oviducts into the peritoneum. 7th. That subacute ovaritis not unfrequently causes and prolongs metritis. 8th. That ovaritis generally leads to considerable andVaried dis- turbance of menstruation. 9th. That some chronic ovarian tumors may be considered as aberrations from the normal structure of the GraaflSan cells. Dr. Tilt pointed out that although these views, when promul- gated, had been adversely criticized byDrs. Kigby, West, Bennet, and Churchill, they were now to a great extent accepted, and that they have been amply demonstrated both clinically and necroscopically by Aran, Bernutz, Gallard, IST^grier, and Lireday. I would emphati cally dissent from his 3d postulate, which I regard as entirely too sweeping an assertion, but witli the remaining eight I fully ao-ree Of late years rapid advances have been made in the suro-ica] treatment of the diseases of women. Under the lead of Simpson
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