A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 4

by Unknown

There are certain forms of diseases of women peculiar to the menstrual period of life. The attendant lesions are found either in the reproductive organs themselves or outside of them in remote organs, but with such monthly exacerbations as show their participation in the catamenial excitement. They are always very hard to cure, and often prove to be wholly unmanageable until the climacteric has been established.

In this category may be classed fibroid tumors of the womb, chronic pelvic peritonitis and cellulitis, chronic ovaritis and ovaralgia, ovarian insanity, ovarian epilepsy, and, in short, all those phenomena or those lesions which are embraced under the term of pernicious menstruation.

Fibroid tumors of the womb are, fortunately, pretty manageable. Usually, the womb, like a generous host, hospitably entertains them; but once in a while an unwelcome one presents itself which arouses all the resentment of that organ. If, then, it stubbornly resists all treatment, it slowly but surely destroys life by the pain which it evokes and by the loss of blood it gives rise to. In such a case the woman is virtually bed-ridden from her floodings and sufferings, and she looks forward to the climacteric as her only hope. But the change of life is then always postponed for several years beyond the natural term—oftentimes so many years as to be overtaken by the death of the patient.

Then, again, there are those cases in which, despite all treatment, the ovaries remain turgid with blood, acutely neuralgic, and to the last degree sensitive. They become dislocated and lie in Douglas's pouch, or irremediable tissue-changes take place, attended by follicular or by interstitial degeneration. A woman with such a lesion is usually a helpless invalid, racked with atrocious pains, weakened by exhausting menorrhagia, and wholly unable to fulfil her duties as wife or as mother. Usually she seeks relief in anodynes and becomes a confirmed opium-eater.

There are also many distressing cases of salpingitis or of pelvic peritonitis and pelvic cellulitis which cripple a woman past all hope by monthly exacerbations. Such cases are by no means rare, and the woman, reduced to skin and bone, finally dies, because in spite of all treatment the inflammation is rekindled at every monthly period.

Further, there are cases of epilepsy which seem to come wholly from the sexual organs—cases with an ovarian aura, so to speak. The fits begin at puberty, very generally last through life, and end in impairment of the mind. Often the first convulsion is ushered in by the first menstruation, and ever after it is around ovulation as a storm-centre that future eclamptic attacks revolve. Such an epileptic is the terror of her family and a valueless member of society. Generally she dies insane or with enfeebled mind, and if she marries she is very likely to transmit her infirmities to her children, either in the same form as her own or in kind.

Finally, what insane asylum does not hold incurable women whose mental infirmities seem to depend wholly upon the act of ovulation? Some there are who, indeed, never exhibit symptoms of insanity excepting during the monthly flux.

For these menstrual affections there is a remedy which, while yet in its infancy, promises much—one first proposed and performed by R. Battey of Rome, Georgia. This able surgeon reasoned that, since these disorders are kept up by the monthly afflux of blood to the sexual apparatus, and therefore incurable during menstrual life, the only chance of immediate relief lies in the establishment of an artificial menopause. To bring about this change of life he advocated the extirpation of both the ovaries, and labeled the operation normal ovariotomy. With this name fault has been found, because it does not cover the whole ground, for often the ovaries themselves, together with the oviducts, are found diseased. Now, since it is important to distinguish this operation from that of ovariotomy proper, and since the term spaying, which technically defines the character of the operation, is obnoxious from its association with the lower animals, the terms öophorectomy, or Battey's operation, have been adopted.

In well-selected cases this operation has been followed by wonderful results; but it has been greatly abused. By it I have restored to perfect health cases of otherwise incurable fibroid tumors of the womb, cases of dysmenorrhoea and of menorrhagia, and cases of pernicious menstruation in which the sufferers were reduced to the last degree of emaciation and feebleness. Out of 5 cases of ovarian insanity I have also cured 4; the fifth, while not wholly restored, is yet very much better.

This operation has been performed both by the vaginal and the abdominal section. For some years I was a warm advocate of the vaginal method, but I have wholly given it up, because by this method of operation adherent ovaries cannot be safely dislodged, the ovaries cannot always be reached, the vaginal wound cannot be dressed antiseptically, and because the abdominal mode is more simple and less dangerous. Only when the ovaries are dislocated and low down in Douglas's pouch would I possibly resort to the vaginal incision.