A Treatise on Pathological Anatomy (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1831. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III. Diseases of the Ovaries. Of the various alterations presented by these organs, some appear to affect chiefly their fibrous envelope, others their parenchyma, others, again, their vesicles, or at least to have originated there, and lastly, others, to be confined to no one particular part, but to involve them all. The ovaries are not unfrequently affected with acute or chronic hyperemia, producing a redness of their parenchyma which is sometimes general, and sometimes confined principally to the walls of the little cells that contain the ova, which then appear surrounded with a sort of red or brown areola. When the congestion of the ovary is at all considerable, it produces an enlargement of the organ, which sometimes acquires an enormous size in a very short space of time. We then observe, during life, a tumour situated above the pubis and at one side of the median line, to which it approaches as it increases in size, which it sometimes does very rapidly; it may rise several finger's breadths above the margin of the pelvis, and, being more or less moveable, and of a rounded form, might easily be mistaken for the gravid uterus inclined a little to one side. Both ovaries may be thus affected at the same time. When examined after death, their tissue is found to be red, gorged with blood, and friable. It sometimes contains effused blood, and sometimes pus, either infiltrated or collected in abscesses. Suppuration of the ovaries is not always connected with a state of hyperemia so considerable as that now described. On the contrary, the ovary is often gradually transformed into a sac full of pus by an obscure chronic process, without any appreciable tumefaction, and sometimes even without pain. At the same time its fibrous capsule may become soften...