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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    matozoa can live in the matrix. On this point, we need more extended experiments, for I do not think that their duration of life has yet been fully established. Dr. S. R. Percy,* of New York, reports a case in which he found living spermatozoa, and many dead ones, issuing from the os uteri, eight and a half days after the last sexual connection. During this time the husband of the pa- tient had been from home. I have examined the semen many times with the view of determining this point, and think I can safely say that spermatozoa never live more than twelve hours in the vaginal mucus. But in the mucus of the cervix they live much longer. At the end of twelve hours, while all are dead in the vagina, there are but few dead ones to be found in the cervix. When the cervical mucus is examined from thirty-six to forty hours after coition, we shall ordinarily find as many spermatozoa dead as alive. But my observations on this point.could not, under the nature of things, be accepted as the rule, for they were all made upon those who were, or had been, the subjects of uterine disease in some form or other. Here is the re]3ort of an observation made upon a patient who is perfectly reliable:— Sexual intercourse at eleven p.m. on Saturday. A microscopic examina- tion of the secretions was made on Monday, at three p.m., just forty hours afterwards. The vaginal mucus contained a few dead spermatozoa—none alive; the cer- vical mucus contained great numbers very active—a few dead. The above is copied from notes made at the time. I saw no reason why many of these active spermatozoa should not have lived for a still longer time. Many of * American Medical limes, March 9th, 1861.