Proliferating cysts in the ovary of a seven months' foetus / by Alban Doran.

  • Doran, Alban H. G. (Alban Henry Griffiths), 1849-1927.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proliferating cysts in the ovary of a seven months' foetus / by Alban Doran. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    < _ Reprinted from ‘ Transitions qf. the ^Pathological Society of London’ for 1881. 1 * - • if./', ;• | 4 * » 1 <?. Proliferating cysts *a seven months’ foetus. By Alban Doean. [With Plate YI, fig. 2.] A few months since, when engaged in the examination of healthy- human ovaries, I removed the internal generative organs from a seven months’ foetus, kindly forwarded to me by my friend Dr. Champneys. Presuming from their outward appearance' that the ovaries were absolutely normal, I thought that they would afford me a favorable opportunity for investigating the development of the Graafian follicles, and particularly for observing the primitive invo- lution which these follicles undergo long before puberty. Por this purpose I first entrusted the ovaries to Dr. Vincent Harris, whose skill and experience in preparing microscopic specimens were suffi- cient to ensure the production of the fine series of sections which are brought forward to-night. Each ovary measured two fifths of an inch in length. The right proved to be perfectly normal. Hundreds of Graafian vesicles were scattered over the stroma. In the tissue.of the hilum, but there only, were thick-walled vessels. It is significant that whilst in the left ovary not one of the smaller cystic cavities presently to be described could be positively identified as an ovisac, in this, its fellow, the follicles forced themselves on the observer’s notice at the first glance. Some of the deeper follicles lay close to the thick- walled vessels with which they are so often confounded. The ova were very distinct; the epithelial lining of the follicles was far more prominent than the slender endothelium which bounded the lumen of the thick-walled vessels, but much thinner^than the lining of the morbid cysts in the left ovary. The spindle-celled stroma of the parenchyma in this normal ovary contrasted strongly with the fibrous and elastic tissue which replaced it in the same organ on the left side. The left ovary appeared quite flat, like its fellow, and had the sharply-defined, sinuous border characteristic of the ovary in later fcetal life. Dr. Harris and myself were much surprised, on examin- ing the sections, to find that the ovary contained three cysts, of almost equal size, lying in a row along its long axis, and plainly visible to