An account of two cases in which ovules, or their remains, were discovered in the Fallopian tubes of unimpregnated women who had died during the period of menstruation / by H. Letheby ; communicated by T.B. Curling.

  • Letheby, H. (Henry), 1816-1876.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of two cases in which ovules, or their remains, were discovered in the Fallopian tubes of unimpregnated women who had died during the period of menstruation / by H. Letheby ; communicated by T.B. Curling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the Fallopian tubes, was much the same as the preceding, excepting that the number of the blood-discs was considerably less ; that there was a greater abundance of ciliated epithelium ; and that the fluid in which the elements floated was not gela- tinous, but serous (see fig. 4). A consideration of the facts thus presented to notice, led me to conclude that the girl had died at the very onset of a catamenial period, for I could not discover any evidence of the occurrence of an external flow; in fact, the secretion found in the vagina was not very abundant, and it had acquired only a pale rose tint. On instituting a further inquiry into the case, I ascertained that the periodical flux had taken place exactly one week before the woman made the attempt on her life; and with regard to the subsequent history of the case, it may be said that she was laid up with the wound in her throat for a period of twenty-four days before her death, nineteen of which were passed in a separate ward of the Hospital, where, in consequence of her very distressing condition, she was closely watched by a female attendant, so that it is hardly possible that sexual intercourse could have been effected during that period of time. While I was engaged in the investigation of the preceding case, I received from my friend Dr. Parker of Finsbury Square, who had assisted me in the foregoing inquiry, another uterus and its appendages, which he had removed from the body of a lunatic aged twenty-three. This girl had died, and was examined in St. Luke’s Hospital, where she had been a patient for eleven months, under circumstances which deprived her of the opportunity of associating with a male for a long period before her death. The information obtained by inquiries of the attendant at St. Luke’s, as well as by an examination of the organs themselves, led me to conclude that the girl had quitted life during the catamenial period ; for the pelvic viscera were much congested, the uterus was considerably enlarged, its vessels were turgid, and its cavity contained a red jelly-like matter; besides which, the Fallopian tubes were filled with a thick muco-sanguineous secretion, and the right ovary presented a dark livid spot on its outer and lower part: many cicatrices were also found on the surfaces of both the ovaries. As in the last case, the livid spot had a hole in its centre; and, on making a section of the ovary so as to divide it through the spot and an adjacent cicatrix, I perceived that the hole led into a cavity, which was surrounded by a deep red tissue, and that the cicatrix communicated with a very perfectly formed corpus luteutn, having a central cavity containing a dark red clot (see fig. 7 and preparation). The matter contained in the right Fallopian tube was submitted to careful exami- nation, by which means I discovered a little globular body that had the size of a small pin’s head. This body was transferred, as in the last case, to water; then placed between two pieces of glass, and examined under the microscope with a power of 100. The outer constituents of the mass were precisely like those of the preceding; that is, they consisted of nucleated cells, arranged so as to form a shaggy, but tolerably