The pathology and treatment of diseases of the ovaries / by Lawson Tait. --.

  • Tait, Lawson, 1845-1899.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathology and treatment of diseases of the ovaries / by Lawson Tait. --. 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.

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    The infundibulum is covered by transitional columnar epithe- lium, and at the margin of the fimbriae it meets the squamous epithelium of the peritoneum, forming the only instance of the union of a mucous and a serous surface—in fact, the unique in- stance of an opening into a serous cavity. Under ordinary circumstances, when the tube is healthy, its cavity is occupied by a small quantity of viscid mucus, and dur- ing menstruation this is replaced by blood of the usual dark, fluid character. Inflammation may occlude both ostia, and con- vert the tube into a cyst, occupied by serum (hydro-salpinx) or by blood (hsemato-salpinx), or by pus (pyo-salpinx), of which conditions I have seen quite a number of cases. Normally the tube lies loose in front of the ovary, and rather below its level, coiling around it till the infundibulum turns toward the middle line and backward toward the posterior sur- face of the gland. This bend of the tube may be actually below the ovary, but, as far as the structures of the broad ligament are concerned, it is, of course, above it. From the lower margin of the mouth of the tube extends the tubo-ovarian ligament, formed by one of the major fimbriae (d, Fig. 1), and which seems to serve as a guide for the tube in its movement toward the ovary. From the posterior lip of the funnel depends the ter- minal bulb of Muller s duct, though it is by no means always present. The parovarium is the remains of the tubular structure of the primordial kidney, or the Wolffian body. It lies between the two layers of the broad ligament, between the upper and outer margin of the ovary and the Fallopian tube. It has the shape of an inverted pyramid (Fig. 4), the apex being applied to, but not attached to, the ovary. The tubules vary much in num- ber—from three or four to thirty. They have always caecal ex- tremities, and those on the outer side are always best marked, the outermost one forming the terminal bulb or organ of Rosen- muller. If a good example of the structure be carefully dis- sected, it will easily be determined that the tubes are lying loose in the cellular tissue of the broad ligament, and are not attached to either of its layers or to the ovary. This explains a char- acteristic feature of those Wolffian cysts which require opera- tion. From the inner and upper angle of the parovarium runs the atrophied Wolffian duct—that is, when it is visible, which is not often the case. This duct is so thoroughly atrophied that I do not think any of the tubules have intercommunication, as they would have if it were not. Of the three layers of the blastoderm which form, by various