On the use and abuse of the uterine speculum : with some remarks on the uterine polypus.

Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use and abuse of the uterine speculum : with some remarks on the uterine polypus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    cry ; and by its abuse this inestimable medicinal agent was cried down, and mineral doctors set aside, and root and herb ones taken in their stead. Tliough this state of afifairs, with the advancing of our profession towards a brighter and better day, is yielding, we yet find the fault existing. It is also a pleasing fact to learn, that the liver has of late days improved very much in its actions, as it does not now occupy the place of great fault doer. The womb, in the female, like the liver in general, has ever been the scape-goat for diseases in a class of our patients, and of late days seems to be growing worse. I am willing to admit that we more frequently of late days find uterine affections among our pa- tients than existed a few years back, owing to a greater amount of luxurious and sedentary living, the peculiar mode of dressing, and other causes, no doubt; but yet this does not prevent the fact from obtaining, that it is abused, and that this organ has often to bear sins not of its own commission or omission. This, of late days, has with many of our medical profession, both in the cities and in the country, given another hobby for them to ride, and they ride it like a borrowed horse—rather too free. Ulceration of the os uteri and also of the cervix of this organ, seems to have sprung int6 existence, as if by magic. Indeed, I have known some places where you could scarcely find a woman whose OS uteri was not as well known to the eye of the medical man of the neighborhood as her face ; or, in the words of a patient of a medical friend of mine who had this mania, Dr., you will surely know by sight the mouth of my womb as well as you know your own child. The Doctor had spemlumed her too often for the good of the cause of medical science, bringing it into disrepute in the community in which he lived, causing those who really needed it to resist its use. We all remember the story, current a few years since, of the English doctor who had become deeply infected with the speculum mania, who, when an enraged father hastened down to Bath as fast as steam could carry him, for the purpose of chastising him for speculuming his young daughter, not only bj the honeyed words of this medical Nestor, became satisfied of the need of it in his daughter's case, but likewise convinced that he needed it, and forthwith was speculated on by the doctor for ulcers of the rectum. So goes the world. It would seem that some Nemesis had determined in the distribut- ing of her punishments to the daughters of Eve, to select the os and