“Mrs. T., aged twenty-six. Severe pelvic pain referred to left side; profuse leucorrhœa; prolonged and painful menstruation. Diagnosis: Pyosalpinx (or pus) in the left tube. Laparotomy (opening the abdomen) advised at Woman’s Hospital. Treatment: Tube emptied into the uterus by applications of positive galvanism to the left horn of the cavity of the uterus. Intravaginal applications afterwards, completed the cure. Duration of treatment, four months Complete relief of pain followed the removal of the pus from the tube. At the end of the treatment she had completely regained her health. Menstruation was normal, and symptoms relieved.”
CHAPTER XXII.
DISEASES OF THE OVARIES.
There is an analogy in the reproductive apparatus, running through the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. The bulb at the lower extremity of the pistil of a flower is called the ovary, and it contains the seed, which in the course of development becomes the fruit.
In the human female, the ovary contains the seed, or germ, which, becoming fertilized, develops into the human embryo, or the fruit of conception.
The seeds of the ovaries are termed ova, or eggs, and the organ or gland in which the germs, or eggs, are prepared is the ovary.
In the human female the ovaries are two follicular glands, about the shape and size of small almonds, situated on each side of the uterus. The follicles, or small sacs, of which the ovaries are composed, are cemented together by delicate fibrillar connective tissue, which is known as the stroma of the ovary, while the follicle is termed Graafian vesicle, after the name of its discoverer. Professor Barry, another investigator, gave the follicles the much better and more appropriate designation of ovisacs, because each of these capsules or follicles contains a single ovule, or little egg.
It is carefully estimated that there are 30,000 Graafian follicles or ovisacs in each ovary, of which only an insignificant number develop and rupture at each menstrual period. It appears, from the researches of Valentine and Pflueger, that the Graafian follicles are formed at a very early period of embryonic life, from a series of minute tubules, that gradually become constricted from surrounding stroma, at regular intervals; the ova are subsequently developed in the interior of the follicles.