On diseases of women and ovarian inflammation : in relation to morbid menstruation, sterility, pelvic tumours, and affections of the womb / by Edward John Tilt.

  • Tilt, Edward John, 1815-1893.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On diseases of women and ovarian inflammation : in relation to morbid menstruation, sterility, pelvic tumours, and affections of the womb / by Edward John Tilt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    0 ISTTEOBTJCTIOir. generally admitted; for if, on the one hand, Madame Boivin ancl Duges only found 35 cases of ovaritis in 686 of metro-peritonitis— suspecting, however, the same disease ia many other cases—Ton- nelle, on the other hand, found, in 222 cases of puerperal fever, 197 cases of inflammation of the womb and of the ovaries; ovaritis was evident in 62 cases; in 4 of which it had ended in suppuration. Dr. E-ohert Lee found the ovaries and Fallopian tubes inflamed in 32 out of 45 cases of puerperal fever. At other times, in all those who die of this disease, evident signs of inflammation of the ovaries are met with. Such, Dr. Lee tells us, was the case at Vienna in 1819. In the epidemic described by Dr. Gordon, of Aberdeen, the ovary was generally diseased, being red, and swollen to the size of a hen's egg, containing pus, or destroyed by a purrulent process, and pus foimd m the abdomen. The softening and disorganisation of the ovaries were amongst the most frequent appearances in the Man- chester epidemic, mentioned by Mr. Eoberton. In one-case, twenty- five hours after death, appearances of putrefaction existed in various parts of the body, and the ovaria resembled masses of venous blood. We consider acute idiopathic ovaritis to be a rare aficction, and while admitting, with Drs. E. Churchill, Gendrin, Yalleix, and Fauvel, that it is much more frequently a cause of pelvic abscess than is generally admitted, still it is comparatively rare. We repeat the statement, because the contrary may be gathered from Dr. H. Bonnet's valuable work, and we cannot admit voth him that the ptis resiilting from this cavise, when it passes by the vagina, is frequently mistaken for the whites, for it is preceded and aceompaniied by symptoms too acute, in the majority of cases, not to attract great attention. Dr. E. Lee tells us that in the course of his -practice he has only met with four cases of idiopathic ovarian abscess. We believe, with Neumann and Astruc, that sub-acute ovaritis is a common disease; and without admitting that it could always be foimd on the dead body, the morbid congestion leaving the ovary when life becomes extinct, still we refer to the frequency of lesions found in the ovaries. The records of St, George's Hospital afford further proof Thus, Mr. Pollock has shown that out of 583 women opened at that institution, from 1841 to 1850, 265 presented lesions in some part of the generative apparatus, and in 116 were found the folloAving lesions : Adiiesions of ovaries 13 Congestion 17 Scrofulous deposits 4 Fibrous 1 Cartilaginous 1 Calcareous 2 Cystic tumours . . < 51 Cancerous . . 18 Atrophy—not senile 8 Displacement 1 116 The thirteen adhesions wvvc evident cases of ovarian peritonitis, and