The duration of vaginitis depends largely upon the treatment. If appropriate treatment is begun early in the course of the disease, a cure can be effected in two or three weeks. On the other hand, it may continue an indefinite length of time or assume a chronic form, constituting a catarrhal condition of the vaginal mucous membrane, or vaginal leucorrhoea.
Sometimes inflammation of the lining of the vagina, more especially specific vaginitis, extends beyond the cervix into the cavity of the uterus, along the Fallopian tubes to the ovaries and to the pelvic peritoneum, or it may travel along the mucous membrane until it reaches the lining of the bladder, causing a cystitis, or in a similar manner involve the vulvo-vaginal glands.
It is not unusual after all the signs of a vaginitis have entirely disappeared that the inflammation recurs without any apparent exciting cause, but wholly in consequence of a diseased condition of the mucous lining of the cervix uteri, designated cervical endometritis, chronic inflammation, or uterine catarrh. In consequence of this there is an increased and changed secretion, which acts as an irritant and causes vaginitis. These recurrent attacks of vaginitis can be prevented only by a successful treatment of the cervical disease.
Chronic vaginitis or vaginal catarrh occurs after repeated attacks of the acute form in persons of a strumous diathesis, and from uterine disorders, such as catarrh, displacements, or polypi of the uterus.
Vaginal catarrh from any cause may lead to other difficulties; thus, if it is the primary affection it may lead to catarrh of the uterus and of the Fallopian tubes. Its long continuance with or without the co-existence of uterine disorders may lead to relaxation and subsequent prolapsus of the vaginal walls.
In the beginning of vaginitis, as in inflammations of mucous membranes elsewhere, the vaginal lining becomes first very vascular, presenting a congested and swollen appearance, with a diminution in the quantity of normal secretion; but within a few days portions of the epithelium are cast off, leaving abraded spots which sometimes ulcerate and become covered with exudation. Occasionally complete casts of the epithelial lining of the vagina are desquamated. In lieu of the natural secretions, within thirty-six hours after the inception of the disease the vagina is filled with an acrid, foul-smelling muco- or sero-purulent fluid, having the appearance of unhealthy pus. The discharge consists of serum, numerous epithelium cells, pus-corpuscles, blood-globules, and infusorial animalculæ designated Trichomanas vaginalis, and mucus. When an attack is very severe a true phlegmonous inflammation is often developed in consequence of the submucous cellular tissue first becoming involved.
In specific vaginitis it not infrequently occurs that the disease is confined to the vaginal cul-de-sac—a fact which, according to Guérin,3 explains how sometimes apparently healthy women communicate gonorrhoea to the male.
3 Mal. des Organes génitaux, Paris, 1864.
In granular vaginitis the mucous membrane extending throughout the entire canal and over the neck of the uterus is covered with numerous minute elevations or granulations of about the size and shape of half a millet-seed. Thomas says: "This variety of the disease appears to bear about the same relation to simple vaginitis that follicular vulvitis does to the purulent form of that affection."4 The same author mentions having seen a patient with granular vaginitis so striking in its features that the family physician believed it to be malignant disease developing, until convinced to the contrary.
4 Thomas on Diseases of Women, 5th ed., p. 219.