Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the diseases of women / by Charles West. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![that in many instances the organs were present, though in a very undeveloped condition. Somewhat less uncommon are the instances of absence of one ovary, a malformation generally associated with absence of the other uterine appendages on the same side, and sometimes also with absence of the corresponding kidney; a circumstance which will not surprise you if you bear in mind the mode of development of the urinary and generative apparatus, and the intimate relation which subsists between them at an early period of fcetarexistence. Much less uncommon than the absence of either ovary is the persistence of both through the whole or the greater part of life in the condition which they present in infancy and early childhood, with scarcely a trace of Graafian follicles in their tissue. This want of development of the ovaries is generally, though not invariably, associated with want of development of the uterus and other sexual organs; and I need not say that women in whom it exists are sterile. [It is not altogether out of place to merely mention here the rare occurrence of monsters upon the whole well formed, or, if not well formed, at least well developed, in whom there is the physiologi- cally marvellous absence not only of the whole sexual organs but also of the urinary.* Although such creatures have lived and apparently thriven in utero, their continued life extra uterum is of course impossible.] Two instances have come under my own notice in which there was reason to suppose that some defect of development of the ovaries was present. The first patient was a woman aged forty- three, who had been married for twenty years, but had never menstruated, nor had ever been pregnant. In her case the sexual organs were well formed, though the uterus was small, and sexual appetite existed. The other case was that of a young girl about twenty years of age, who was for some time under the care of the late Dr Eoupell, suffering from those vague symptoms of disorder of the general health which so frequently exist when the appearance of the menses is delayed. She presented the general signs of puberty, but her vagina was very small, and her uterus was not larger than that of a young child. I do not know what became of her eventually, but it is quite possible that the evolu- tion of her sexual organs, though long delayed, may at length have [* Edinburgh Medical Journal, April 1871, p. 937.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21923796_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
