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
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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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    the lymphatic, or that which coincides with a marked predisposition to scrofula. The action of sub-acute ovaritis in the production of dysmenorrhoea is twofold. 1. Sub-acute ovaritis may of itself produce dysmenorrhoea, as a simple result of the process of morbid ovulation, and not by the agency of any appreciable inflammation of the womb, or of its neck, and with- out any appearance of false membrane in. the catamenia. This is what we have seen, and believe to be frequent. 2. Ovaritis, as Dr, Oldham has well shov^ai, often causes dysmenor- rhoea by determining hypertrophy of the uterus, inflammation of its neck, and a diptheritic esudation from its mucous surface. We know that the ovaries, in virtue of their governing influence over the uterus, induce periodically a state of vascular turgescence in the walls of this organ ; and it is not surprising to find that ovaritis frequently induces the exaggeration of this physiological state, or the inflammation of the inner surface of the womb and of its neck; thereby transforming the thin, transparent mucous membrane of the womb into a thick, soft cribriform membrane, and producing the retention or painful excretion of the catamenia, which are mingled with pseudo-decidual membranes. Dr. Oldham observes : The uterine decidua is formed under the influence of an action going on in the ovary, so the membranous dysmenorrhoea is not pri- marily an affection of the womb, but of the ovary. In healthy men- struation the congestion of the ovary, the engorgement of the womb, the opening of the veins on the surface of the cavity of the womb, and the flux of blood, are all in harmony, the latter being, so to speak, the resolution of the former. But when the ovaries are unduly ex- cited, as, for instance, from the prevalence of one or more of the numerous ways in which sexual feelings may influence them, then the uterine glands sympathetically enlarge, the lining membrane of the womb becomes raised, and the body of the womb swells out. This change in the mucous membrane goes on during the interval between the montlily periods, and Avhen the flow begins, the new formation is cast off, and the uterus, in the act of detaching and expelling it, be- comes the seat of very painful contractions.—London Medical Ga- zette, Dec. 4, 1846. We are of opinion that Dr. Bennet has rather relied on his me- mory than on written notes, when he asserts that nearly all the cases of dysmenorrhoea in the unmarried female which have come under my notice, have proved to depend upon inflammation and ulceration of the neck of the womb. HTSTHEICAL TYPE. Having seen how frequently hysteria is caused by functional dis- orders of the ovario-uterine organs, or by their undue influence over a female organism wherein the nervous and sanguineous systems are not properly balanced, it remains to be shown that hysteria is fre- quently a symptom of the inflammatory afiections of the ovario- uterine apparatus. Out of 67 cases of hysteria, wherein a ]Jost-