24 Op. cit., Wien, 1885, p. 185.
The hyperplasia of the connective tissue may be diffuse or circumscribed. It may be limited in development to the collum or corpus uteri. The perimetrium is usually thickened, and other signs of chronic inflammation of that structure are usually present. Chronic endometritis is a constant accompaniment. The pelvic connective tissue is not commonly involved. The plexus pampiniformes and utero-vaginales frequently undergo varicose dilatation.
SYMPTOMS.—The onset of the disease is so insidious and protracted that it is difficult to determine the exact order of occurrence of the symptoms in point of time. Then the complications are so numerous and important that the symptoms of the chronic metritis are frequently masked. A sensation of weight, fulness, or pressure within the pelvis may direct the patient's attention to her condition. This sensation may increase to such a degree that the woman complains of heavy, dull, dragging pains, referred to the centre of the pelvis or the sacral region. Backache is a constant and distressing symptom. Pains radiating up over the abdominal parietes and down the thighs are frequently experienced. Coitus may be productive of acute distress. When the uterus is anteverted, pressing against the bladder, ischuria is the usual result. Constipation, usually present as one of the etiological factors, is aggravated by the retroversion or retroflexion of the top-heavy uterus. Under these circumstances one or both ovaries may be drawn down along with the prolapsed, retroverted uterus, and add materially to the woman's discomfort. The act of defecation is painful; the woman avoids the water-closet, days and even weeks elapsing between evacuations.
Disturbances of the menstrual function are constant. All forms of dysmenorrhoea, including dysmenorrhoea membranacea, are liable to occur. Menstruation is usually profuse, giving origin to menorrhagia, which usually results in the production of an alarming degree of anæmia. The periods are irregular in recurrence and duration. The periodic discharge of blood may last from one to three weeks, and then cease, to reappear after a variable interval of from six to eight weeks. In other cases menstruation may last the usual length of time, but recur every two or three weeks. Amenorrhoea may be observed in the stage of induration.
Priestly,25 Fasbender,26 Fehling, and numerous other clinicians have called attention to intermenstrual pain (règles surnuméraires) as a tolerably constant symptom of chronic metritis. From fourteen to fifteen days after and before the regular time for menstruation vague intrapelvic pains are complained of, and the woman is of the opinion that the monthly flow of blood is about to begin. The pains, however, are not so severe, and do not last so long, as those of menstruation. Occasionally bloody mucus may escape from the vagina. Fehling ascribes this intermenstrual pain to the swelling of the mucous membrane preparatory to the next monthly discharge of blood. The symptom is not at all pathognomonic, as it occurs in connection with oöphoritis and other pathological conditions.
25 Brit. Med. Journ., 1872, p. 431.
26 Zeitschrift f. Gebürtskulfe und Frauenkrankheiten, i. 1.
As the result of the chronic endometritis, which usually follows parenchymatous inflammation, metrorrhagia is frequently observed. Leucorrhoea, more or less profuse, is a constant symptom. Opinions vary extremely as to the systemic reaction following chronic metritis. General failure of nutrition, functional disturbances of the gastro-intestinal canal, hysteria, headache,27 facial neuralgia (Barnes), coccygodynia, vaginodynia, skin diseases, alopecia (Hebra), and a host of other affections, have been ascribed from time to time to the direct influence of chronic uterine infarct. Doubtless, the condition under discussion plays an important rôle in the production of these and other disorders. But the position is utterly untenable at the present day that chronic parenchymatous inflammation of the uterus is the efficient cause in the absence of all other etiological factors.28
27 Peaselee, "Uterine Headache," American Medical Monthly, 1860.
28 Fritsch, op. cit., 1885, p. 323.