A treatise on the diseases and special hygiène of females / By Colombat de l'Isère. Translated from the French, with additions, by Charles D. Meigs.
- Marc Colombat de L'Isère
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the diseases and special hygiène of females / By Colombat de l'Isère. Translated from the French, with additions, by Charles D. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
40/764 (page 34)
![M. Brierre de Boismont, in his work De la Menstruation, p. 172, says, in speaking of the analysis of the fluid, This task has lately been taken up by M. Bouchardat, who had the goodness to analyze the blood of one of ray patients, who submitted to experiments for this purpose—one of the most disagreeable and distressing that could be thought of. In order to collect a quantity amounting to twenty-two grammes, about one ounce, it was neces- sary that a speculum, embracing the cervix uteri exactly, should be retained in situ for ten consecutive hours, &c. Now, if this woman yielded an ounce in ten hours, she would give more than two ounces in twenty-four hours; but at the same rate for seven days, the sum of the discharge, it is seen, would be not far from fifteen or sixteen ounces. I repeat my opinion, that what it interests us as medical counsel to know is, not what is the usual quantity for women, but what is the rate of the particular woman in her ordi- nary health: her deviations from her own economic law are the signs and measures of her disorder.—M.] Unwilling to extend our observations further upon a topic treated perhaps too much in extenso already, I shall abstain from repeating all that has been stated by authors in regard to the menses and their periodicity. The opinions of the writers who have treated this point are so different and often so contradictory, that we shall content our- selves with adding that the mechanism of the function is always the same, whether the discharge takes place within the body or the cervix uteri, in the vagina or in the appendages. Most modern phy- siologists regard the menstrual evacuation as an active haemorrhage, and the effect of a peculiar excitement of the womb, but have not as yet settled the point as to whether the discharge takes place from the arteries of the capillary system or from vessels of the venous system. The mystery of menstruation will be for ever covered with a veil which cannot be perfectly removed. Under this conviction, we shall confine ourselves to the statement that the flow takes place whenever, under the influence of a special law of the organization, the womb acquires a certain intensity of vital force proper to attract the blood towards itself at the periodical epochs. We shall also add that the cause of the regular periodicity of this uterine erethism is a physiological problem which will, probably, never be solved. [I trust that the exposition of the causes of the function, both as to its regularity and nature, given in a preceding page, and which has the sanction of MM. Negrier, Gendrin, Bischoff, Lee, Pouchet, &c, will be found, by most readers, sufficient to remove the doubt and uncertainty above expressed upon the subject.—M.] In some rare cases the flow never appears, and it may be so with- out any evil consequences. This condition, which in nowise implies the nullity of the venereal appetite, nor even the existence of sterility, is sometimes met with in women whose sexual organs are in a nor- mal condition, and present no physical obstacle nor chronic affection](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21029313_0040.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
