Early contributions of anatomy to obstetrics.

  • Alexander Hugh Freeland Barbour
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Early contributions of anatomy to obstetrics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    the body of the uterus where the seed becomes ad- herent and from which the menstrual discharge takes place. Further, and most commonly in nulliparae, the uterus has folds running towards the body, usually two, and folded like felt. '• But now in cases of atresia the obstructing membrane is found at one time near the labia, at others in the middle of the vagina, at others at the os uteri. The references to operations for hernia in which the ovaries were seen and to the extirpation of the uterus (apparently pr lapsed) are of great inten As to style, it has that rather of the scientific teacher than of the investigator, and is therefore to be regarded, I think, as the finished product of anatomical investigation done by many hands, probably in the dissecting rooms at Alexandria. This only makes it the more remarkable, that Galen, whom we pass to next, either did not know or took no notice of the book, and the more to be regretted that all the work on which it was based was lost, and had to be done over again fourteen centuries later at the Revival of Learning. G ilen, who was born at Pergamos in Asia Minor in 130 A.D., lived under Hadrian, the Antonines, Commodus, and Severus. Although distinguished in human anatomy generally, he neglected gether the anatomy of the female pelvis. In the section, YaXijvov 7rep\ fx,)rpa^ avaro/mr]? fiiftXiov,1 he begins as follows:— We shall treat of the situation of the uterus, its dze and form, whence it hangs, how it is nourished, to what it is attached, what it touches, what things surround it, and what things are produced in the womb during pregnancy round the chorion and membranes embracing the foetus. He describes the uterus as extending above with its fundus to the umbilicus, below to eleven fingers'-breadths from the vulva, and reaching with its horns to either ilium. In describing its form als - that the shape of the fundus is like the bladder, but that it lias mammary proi extending towards the ilia. Further on, he says that in woman ami in other animals which are like to women in the uterus, such as goats and cattle foetuses are found not in horns but in tin- rest of the whole cavity. But these (as I think) mix up and suggest to the mind absurdities, since they cannot explain the use and action of the horns. And as my discourse would lie too long and also unequal if I spoke of the use and action of the horns ami not of the other structures round the uterus, on that account this subject is to he deferred to another treat. From the foregoing it will be evident that Galen had never opened a female pelvis, and it is remarkable that he should have sat down gravely to write an account of what he had never seen. In a note on this book Kulin says, humanos uteros non incidit, sed simiarum aliorumque animalium. Aretceus is considered by Dr Francis Adams, the learned editor of a collection of his works for the Sydenham Society, to have 1 Tom. ii. of the complete edition of hi- works, comprising 20 volumes of the Medicorum Gr(ecorum Opera qua ■ tstani : Editionem curavit 1). Carolus Gottlob Kuhn. Lipsiae 1327.
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