Clinical notes on uterine surgery : with special reference to the management of the sterile condition / by J. Marion Sims.

  • J. Marion Sims
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical notes on uterine surgery : with special reference to the management of the sterile condition / by J. Marion Sims. 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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    muscle and the fourchette to the perineal raphe. This left a very thin partition between the two outlets. After this a glass vaginal dilator was introduced, and worn almost constantly. A larger one was used in a day or two, and in a fortnight sexual intercourse was accomplished for the first time without pain. Where there is cicatricial tissue, as in this case, there is danger of a relapse, and hence greater necessity for a prolonged use of the dilator. This remarkable case presents many points of interest, not the least of wrhich is the fact that the two conceptions took place while she was in a state of complete anaesthesia. 3. Atresia Vaginae.—This, of course, forms an obstacle to the reception of the seminal fluid. It may be congenital or accidental^—more frequently the latter, and oftener the result of tedious labour, followed by sloughing. The records of the Woman's Hospital present a number of cases of atresia, a few of which will serve as examples. I have seen but one case that misrht be called con- genital;. and that was in a young girl aged eighteen, who entered the Hospital in October, 185*7, complaining of great pain every month without ever having had the slightest show. She had taken aloetic purgatives and other emmenagogues without benefit. On examination, a rounded tumour, half as large as a fceta] head, supposed to be the uterus, could be felt in the hypogastrium. The finger passed through the hymen, which was very rigid, detected a hard inelastic tumour, three-quarters of an inch beyond it, the vagina seemingly ending there in a cul-de-sac. By passing the finger into the rectum, it came in contact with the tumour felt through the vagina, and which appeared