CHAPTER XXIV.
PELVIC CELLULITIS OR PARAMETRITIS.
The term cellular was given to this tissue, because under the microscope it shows large meshes or cell-like cavities, that are also termed areolæ, hence, the tissue is often called areolar tissue; it is also called connective tissue, because it combines all the different organs and structures of the body together. It is very elastic and contractile, and by the fluid which it contains in its areolæ, motion of parts on each other is facilitated.
Professor Virchow has applied to it, in the region of the womb or pelvis, the term parametric tissue, from the Greek prefix para, beside, and the Latin metra, the womb, signifying the tissue near and around the womb, from which the Germans derive parametritis, instead of the English, who employ pelvic-cellulitis, each meaning one and the same thing, namely, inflammation of the cellular or connective tissue in the pelvis or around the womb.
The female pelvic organs have interspaces between the bladder, vagina and uterus in front, and the uterus, vagina and rectum behind, also on both sides, between the womb, ovaries, and the folds of the broad ligaments, and lastly, between these organs and the walls of the pelvic cavity are interspaces. These interspaces are filled in or padded out by loose cellular tissue. M. Nonat, a celebrated French authority, has described this in a beautiful figure, by saying that “the organs of reproduction float in an atmosphere of cellular tissue.” This is indeed so, and a consideration of an inflammatory condition of this structure, is to conclude the inquiry into the inflammatory diseases peculiar to women.
Pelvic cellulitis is one of those diseases for the comprehension of which we are particularly indebted to the researches of modern pathologists, who have discovered that infectious germs are the cause of numerous diseases; pelvic cellulitis is one of these, because it originates as a secondary result of septic absorption.
The bacteria or putrefactive germs belong to Protophytes—the smallest and simplest of all plants, some of them are so small that it requires the highest powers of the microscope to make them visible. Their growth and multiplication have been experimentally demonstrated by artificial cultivation, and this now constitutes one of the most interesting studies of modern pathology.