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.
172/340 (page 148)
![We have frequently known menstruation to be irregular, profuse, or abnormal in type during courtship, in women, in wbom nothing similar had previously occiu'red; and, perhaps, the phenomena of spurious pregnancy which, in unmarried females, gives rise to hysteria, or dys- pepsia, may, as Dr. Laycock believes, depend upon ovarian irritation, and may be the product of the causes under discussion. A late writer on diseases of menstru.ation, Dr. Dusourd, attributes even to these causes a greater influence than ourselves. Les lectures et les entretiens Crotiques, says this accurate observer; les tableaux fic- tifs de rimagination, excitent bien plus les organes de la generation que la presence des hommes. lis exaltent tellement, qvie j'ai vu plusieurs fois des inflammations se developper aux parties genitales par cette seule cause sans attouchement et sans action des agents exterieurs. We mxist not forget how powerfully the same causes operate on man, and as they promote in him the secretion of the seminal fluids, we may therefore infer that they produce on woman an analogous effect. When we consider how much of the lifetime of woman is occupied by the various phases of the generative process, and how terrible is often the conflict within her, between the headlong impulse of passion and the dictates of duty, we may well understand how such a conflict must react on the organs of the sexual economy in the unimpregnated female, and principally on the ovaria, the acknowledged centres of the sexual system, causing an orgasm which, if often repeated, may ])ossi- hli] be productive of sixb-acute ovaritis. The left ovary is evidently more liable to idiopathic inflammation than the right, for in adding 17 cases of sub-acute ovaritis, mentioned in our first edition, and 16, which we have carefully noted since then, we obtain a total of 33, of which cases 9 occurred on the right side, 17 on the left, and both ovaries were aflected in 7 patients. We have collected from various sources 26 cases of idiopathic acute ovaritis. It occiu-red on the right side in 7 cases, on the left in 15, and both ovaries were affected in 4 instances. In 9 other cases of acute ovaritis mentioned in this work, it occurred on the right side in 5 cases, on the left in 2, and both ovaries seemed affected in 2 cases. Adding these three lists, it w^ould appear that idiopathic ovaritis occurred On the right side in . . . .21 cases On the left side in 34 „ On both sides in .... 13 „ so that it occurred only on the left side in 50 per cent, of cases. Our experience, therefore, confirms the assertions of Dr. E-igby, Chereau, Tanchou, and Pistocchi, upon a point which is not without interest, becptuse the right ovary is said to be most frequently affected with ovarian dropsy, and also because, according to the statements of Grisolle, iliac abscess occurs much more frequently on the right side. Neither can it be out of place to mention that in birds the right ovary is rudimentary, while the left does all the work. The orni- tlio'byncus pi'escnts the same peculiarity. It has been thought that the left ovary is more liable to be irritated than the right, on account](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21081189_0172.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
