On the causes and treatment of abortion and sterility : being the result of an extended practical inquiry into the physiological and morbid conditions of the uterus, with reference especially to leucorrhoeal affections and the diseases of menstruation / by James Whitehead.

  • Whitehead, James, 1812-1885.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the causes and treatment of abortion and sterility : being the result of an extended practical inquiry into the physiological and morbid conditions of the uterus, with reference especially to leucorrhoeal affections and the diseases of menstruation / by James Whitehead. 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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    9. Syphilitic disease, both in its primary, secondary, and tertiary stages, is capable of inducing abortion at any period of the process, but most frequently perhaps about the sixth and seventh months. In the secondary form, its presence may in many instances be detected in the uterus, years after it was believed to have been eradicated from the system, and when no other evidence of its existence but this can be discovered, until it is seen to develope itself in unmistakeable characters in the offspring. The appearances presented by the labia and cervix of the womb affected with secon- dary syphilis are striking, and, I think, peculiar to this class of affec- tions : they must therefore be regarded as of considerable importance in diagnosis. 10. Prolapsus uteri. I shall proceed presently to describe each of the preceding forms of disease somewhat more fully; but in order to understand clearly why abortion should be more liable to occur at an earlier or later period of pregnancy under some morbid conditions than others, it may be advisable to take a cursory glance at the physiological changes which the neck of the uterus undergoes during its develop- ment in the gravid state. The cavity of the uterus is naturally divided into two distinct portions : the body and the cervix. After the product of conception has made its escape from the Fallopian canal into the uterus, it occupies alone the first-named of these divisions; the cervix remain- ing still void, except by its peculiar secretion ; and the membrana decidua uteri completely isolates the one from the other. As the ovum grows in size, the body of the uterus correspondingly increases in dimensions for its accommodation. The cervix undergoes a simul- taneous increase both in the length and thickness of its walls; but its cavity remains unchanged until towards the end of the third month, at which stage of the process it begins to be encroached upon by the expansion of the upper division; the change com- mencing at the part where the walls of the one are immediately con- tinuous with the other. From this period the distension gradually and steadily progresses during the remainder of the process; so that, in the ninth month of pregnancy, the cervix is entirely obliterated, and what was formerly a long tube of nearly equal dimensions through- out, becomes identified with the general uterine cavity. It thus appears that a complete and very important metamorphosis of the whole cervix takes place during pregnancy, and it will be readily