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.
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![likewise firmly convinced, that by the nse of means so simple the number and intensity of the diseases of menstruation may be greatly diminished. Many of our countrywomen fancy that they would surrender a portion of their eminently feminine character by adding to their apparel an appendage considered masculine in this countiy —a prejudice that is naturally confirmed by the well-known prover- bial expression, she wears the breeches, by which discredit is sometimes thrown on both contracting powers of a matrimonial al- liance. The practitioner should use his endeavours to combat this prejudice, and we trust his efibrts will be more successful than liave been the many professional crusades against tight lacing. Dr. Handyside, who has been for thirty years in practice at St. Petersburg]!, whites to us that in women of the higher classes the menstrual flow is always much deranged during the winter. Dr. Ferguson, colonial surgeon to the Swan River settlement, and Dr. Alleyne, formerly colonial surgeon at Demerara, inform us that pain- ful disorders of menstruation are most frequent diu'iug the cold and rainy season. Dr. Hannover, of Copenhagen, has shown that while the use of Russian or tepid baths during menstruation would leave the flow unchanged in one case, it would make it sliorter, weaker, and irregular in sis. Whether the action of cold be direct or indirect, its influence in checking the menstrual flow, and thereby sometimes causing inflammatory afiections of the reproductive organs, cannot be understood, except by the hypothesis, by which we have attempted, p. 90, to explain the phenomena of menstrual suppression. The ova- rian nisus is interrupted by a sudden shock applied to the ganglionic nervous centre, by whicli the menstrual flow is impelled. Cold, internally or externally applied to the body, disturbs the normal ovarian nisus, as it does its abnormal cerebro-spinal phe- nomena, called hysterical fits, except in rare instances, such as that of the notorious Teroenne de Mericourt, who, winter and summer,' would, with naked feet, pace the stone floor of her cell, which she night and morning deluged with cold water. In winter she would break the ice to get at the water; and yet, though she continued this kind of life for ten years, Esquirol says that during the whole time her menstruation was regular. But if, in insanity, the functions chiefly depending on the ganglionic nervous system are steeled against the action of perturbing influences, in other women the sus- pension of the impending flow is sometimes followed by sub-acute ovaritis, accompanied by dysmenorrhoea and hysteiical symptoms. When, on the other hand, they operate durinc/ the menstrual flow, the sub-acute ovaritis they may produce is often attended by en- gorgement of the uterus, which is accounted for by the active con- gestion of its tissues, and the retention of blood in its cavity. According to some authors, suppression of menstruation gives rise to ovaritis in those who have not borne children, and to metritis in those who have. This is but an assertion. The retention and sup- pression of the menses has a twofold influence in the production of ovaritis, and we may also add, disease of the pelvic organs in general,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21081189_0176.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
