Index raisonné to the New materia medica / by J.C. Peters and F.G. Snelling.
- John Charles Peters
- Date:
- [1861]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Index raisonné to the New materia medica / by J.C. Peters and F.G. Snelling. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![regularly tuberiform, and fissured, and of a dull white color; in the latter particular the contrast with the surrounding tissues is sometimes strikingly marked. In less common cases the color of the cervix is dirty brownish-red. Second Stage.—At a variable period the second stage commences, and is usually marked by a change in the constancy, intensity, and character of the pain. It becomes more or less habitual, acquires the lancinating character and extreme severity. Generally situated in the uterine region, and shooting along the broad and round ligaments, this pain is sometimes replaced by sharp pangs in the course of the sciatic, crura], or obturator nerves, recurring, it may be, at fixed periods of the day—pangs that have, according to the testimony of Boyle, been in certain instances so violent as to induce ' cerebral fever.' Such ex- treme results as these are, however, rare, though the intensity of pain sometimes, beyond a question, shortens life by exhaustion. These neuralgiae may be attended with the debility and inability to move of ordinary sciatica. The excretion of urine and faeces grows more and more painful and difficult; alternate diarrhoea and constipation some- times distress the sufferer ; in rare instances insuperable obstruction is induced by pressure of enlarged glands on the bowels. Perfora- tion of either, or more rarely of both the adjacent hollow viscera at length takes place, announced first, in the case of the rectum, by the passage of flatus through the vagina ; the latter canal is now converted into a cloaca for the reception of the uterine discharges, and the vesical and intestinal excretions. Haemorrhage may or may not meanwhile have become of more and more frequent recurrence ; the quantity of blood lost on each occasion does not uniformily increase ; on the contrary, as the frequency of haemorrhoids augments, its amount often lessens (precisely as is observed in the haemoptysis of phthisis and of pulmo- nary cancer), while, in other cases, females merely fancy the early attacks the most severe, because they attract more attention than subsequent ones. The vaginal discharge now commonly acquires the cancerous fcetor, and a dirty white or greenish color, is thin and serous (in some cases perfectly watery), sometimes mixed with blood, or, especially where encephaloid fungi have sprung up. with shreds or lumps of cancerous matter. Its acrid properties are usually so marked that its contact with the vulva, perinaeum, and folds of the thighs causes excoriation of those parts, and furnishes additional cause for the pruritus felt in the former situation. The discharge, however, sometimes continues trifling for a time after ulceration has set in. ' * '::' '' '' * '' ';:' '::' ' * * Viewed through the speculum, the diseased surface exhibits the dif- ferent characters of cancerous destruction. At advanced periods of the malady the use of the speculum is very dangerous, and may cause a rupture of the vagina. The general symptoms are usually well marked in uterine cancer —the cancerous facies and straw-colored tint of the skin particu- larly so. Loss of sleep, failure of strength, and emaciation make](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2114719x_0090.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
