On the diseases of women : including the diseases of pregnancy and childbed / by Fleetwood Churchill ; a new American edition, revised by the author, with notes and additions by D. Francis Condie.
- Churchill, Fleetwood, 1808-1878.
- Date:
- 1852
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the diseases of women : including the diseases of pregnancy and childbed / by Fleetwood Churchill ; a new American edition, revised by the author, with notes and additions by D. Francis Condie. 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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![secondarily. The first may consist in defective organization or deranged action.—The hitter is generally amenable to judicious medical treatment; the former more rarely. Deranged action of the parts (primary) is of the same character as of other organs; sometimes demanding depletion, or stimulation, or counter-irritation, &c, for its cure. Where the derange- ment is sympathetic, or depends on some lesion of another organ or organs (secondary) the treatment consists, in the first place, in removing the primary affection, and secondly, in restoring the uterus or ovaries to their normal state—the latter condition, however, being only symp- tomatic, very generally subsides on the removal of the primary disease. How, then, is it possible that any or all of the means or remedies men- tioned by the author should not fail, unless the particular one employed be adapted to the circumstances of the individual case? Amenorrhoea, like all other morbid conditions, must be treated accord- ing to sound principles, if we desire to be successful. We must first as- certain the pathological condition, and then apply the therapeutic means which experience has taught us to be best adapted to overcome that morbid state by which the flux is prevented. According to this view of the case, the agents we employ are only relative, or indirect in their effects—the menstrual flux which follows, is the consequence of restored health, not the cause of it, nor the immediate effect of the medicine administered. Viewed in any other light, emmenagogues deserve to be regarded, as Dr. Ferguson indeed has classed them, with nostrums. Recently, in simple amenorrhoea dependent on atony of the parts, we have derived much advantage from Electro-Magnetism. The uterus and ovaries should be gently stimulated for half an hour at a time, two or three times daily, by passing the electrical current through the parts.—Editor.] 105. (c) Amenorrhoea, with Vicarious Uterine Leucorrhoea.—This variety differs most essentially from the preceding. In them, the ute- rine system was quiescent, the uterine function altogether absent; in this, on the contrary, the uterus is often in a state of full and regular action. It is true, that in the ordinary sense the case is one of amenor- rhoea, because the red menstrual discharge does not appear; but a more accurate investigation will show that the uterus is secreting a white fluid. The womb is not in fault, but probably the materiel upon which it is operating, as the subjects of this form are generally in delicate health. On this account, the establishment of menstruation is looked for with great anxiety, as a kind of crisis when their future good or bad health will be determined. Upon inquiry, we shall be told that the symptoms usually accom- panying menstruation have appeared, and perhaps have recurred several times with great regularity. The patient has had periodical pain in the back and loins; languor, weariness, weight at the lower part of the abdomen, &c, and yet you are given to understand that she has not been unwell, regular, or as she ought to have been. Now, as great mischief may be done by treating these cases as simple amenorrhoea, a more minute investigation must be made, as we shall find that at each of these periodical attacks there was a white discharge from the vagina. This fact is occasionally mentioned by the older writers, and by some](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21030157_0098.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
