Graphic illustrations of abortion and the diseases of menstruation / Consisting of Twelve Plates from Drawings Engraved on Stone, and Coloured by Mr. J. Perry, and Two Copper-plates from the Philosophical Transactions, Coloured by the Same Artist. the Whole Representing Forty-five Specimens of Aborted Ova and Adventitious Productions of the Uterus, With Preliminary Observations, Explanations of the Figures and Remarks, Anatomical and Physiological.

by A. B. Granville

Fig. 1. Membrana pseudo-textilis intro-uterina bi-tubulata.

A pulpy tissue of a very loose texture, scarcely deserving of the name of membrane,—of a bright red colour when thrown off by the womb, but, soon after maceration in water, assuming a yellowish tint, and appearing like a gelatinous, thickish, and translucid web, the component molecules of which possess but slightly the power of cohesion, being easily lacerated. Examined with a powerful lens, it looks like a congeries of globules of gelatine, arranged together into a flat, but not even surface. It possesses flexibility, but scarcely any elasticity.

This tissue lines the womb; and the two superior tubes drawn up vertically in the preparation are the prolongations of that lining into the fallopian tubes.

It was thrown off in the case of a patient suffering habitually from dysmenorrhœa, after acute pain; and on the third day of a very scanty menstruation. The patient was not a married lady, and under twenty-five years of age. The same production had been observed on more than one occasion before by the attendant, but not especially noticed until after I began to visit the patient.