On diseases of women and ovarian inflammation : in relation to morbid menstruation, sterility, pelvic tumours, and affections of the womb / by Edward John Tilt.
- Edward John Tilt
- Date:
- 1853
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On diseases of women and ovarian inflammation : in relation to morbid menstruation, sterility, pelvic tumours, and affections of the womb / by Edward John Tilt. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
146/340 (page 122)
![companied by pain, is yellow or green, and attended by much pain in the back and thighs, and if it has been allowed to continue long enough seriously to disturb the functions of the intestinal surface, the case alters, for, in addition to the constitutional employment of steel, iodine, or mercury, local applications may then be necessary—a fact only to be determined by an accurate examination. Of 260 women in whom the menstrual function had ceased, 143 had never been subject to leucoi-rhoea; of the remaining 117, The vaginal secretion was increased at cessation in . ,77 cases It was diminished in . . . . . . . 24 „ It remained stationary in IQ „ As previous to first menstruation, so after its cessation, the dimi- nution of the ovarian nisus may be thus indicated by the substitution of a periodical mucous discharge for one of blood. In one case this occurred regularly every month for a year, for eighteen months in another, in a third for two years. Thus the natural history of woman shows the frequency of the in- creased mucous discharge from the generative intestine. Pouchet has proved that the mucous discharge is an inseparable portion of the phenomena of menstruation ; and the motto of this chapter indicates that the phenomena rest on an anatomical basis. It seems to us that such results are peculiarly interesting at the present time, when those who are without experience in uterine pathology are placed between two extreme opinions ; for while, on the 'one hand, they are told that, in nineteen cases out of twenty, when a woman seeks pro- fessional advice for leucorrhoea, she will be found on examination to be suffering from some inflammatory disease of the uterine region, they are informed, on the other, that uterine ulceration seldom or ever exists: those who judge for themselves mil find that truth lies be- tween the two extremes. With respect to the nature of the mucous discharges of the genera- tive intestine, we quote from Dr. Tyler Smith and Mr. AVhitehead, by whom they have been best described: The normal miicus secreted by the glandular portion of the cervix is extremely viscid and almost transparent. It adheres to the crypts and rugae so as to fill the canal of the cervix. It consists chiefly of mucous corpuscles, caudate corpuscles, minute oil globules, and occa- sionally dentated epithelium, all entangled in a thick tenacious plasma. The tenacity of the plasma is so great that the mucous cor- puscles and epithelial debris are arranged in strings within the fluid, and even individual corpuscles may be elongated by pressure upon the plasma, under the microscope. The mucus found at the lowest part of the canal of the cervix is thinner than that belonging to the glandular portion of the cervix, a circumstance which may perhaps be owing to the secretory action of the large number of villi within the margin of the os. The mucus found in the upper part of the vagina, as the proper vaginal secretion, is no doubt chiefly secreted by the villi and epithe- lium of the upper extremity of the vagina and of the os uteri and ex- ternal ])ortion of the cervix. The vaginal mucus, as first secreted, is pearly and semi-transpa-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21081189_0146.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
