On the nature of various substances formed in or discharged from the uterus and vagina / by Arthur Farre. No. I., On exfoliation of the epithelial coat of the vagina, producing casts of that canal, with remarks on the true form of the vagina.

  • Farre, Arthur, 1811-1887.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature of various substances formed in or discharged from the uterus and vagina / by Arthur Farre. No. I., On exfoliation of the epithelial coat of the vagina, producing casts of that canal, with remarks on the true form of the vagina. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Learning that she sometimes passed membranes I procured one of these, and examined it carefully under fluid. The substance expelled (plate XII, fig. 4), consisted of a thin double layer of a somewhat slight yet tough and parchment-like membrane, of an opake white colour, and smooth almost lustrous or pearly surface. It appeared at first to be a cast of the flattened inter- space between the uterine walls which constitutes the cavity of that organ, and exhibited very much of the triangular form of the uterus. The two membranous layers of which it was com- posed were in close apposition, and were bounded by a peculiarly sharp, thin border, like the marginal folding of the uncut pages of a book. Yet, supposing this to have been ejected from the uterus, there were still many conditions irreconcilable with such an hypothesis. The size of the entire cast, which exhibited the triangular outline of the uterus, was more considerable than the cavity of that organ in the usual unimpregnated state. The angles that should correspond with the points of entrance of the Fallopian tubes shewed not the slig htest trace of an aperture, and nowhere was there any of that cribriform appearance, pro- duced by the pores of the uterine glands, which is so character- istically shewn upon the inner surface of true dysmenorrhoeal membranes, while the outer surface was not rough, but smooth and lustrous. The whole was found, upon microscopic exami- nation, to consist of broad flattened nucleated cells of pave- ment-epithelium, and was entirely destitute of the histological characters of the uterine mucous membrane. The example, figs. 1 and 2, Plate XII, representing a prepa- ration in the Anatomical Museum of King's College, gave me the first clue to the true nature of these substances. The prepa- ration is entitled, False Membrane from the Uterus/5 Like the former example, it consists of a sheath of dense opake epi- thelium, but the outer surface, instead of being smooth, is in- dented everywhere, so as to form numerous pits and depres- sions (fig. 1), running in oblique lines, and exactly representing the course of the vaginal rugae. When the preparation is laid open, and viewed from within, (fig. 2), the furrows upon the reverse surface are seen to be converted into rugae, having the ordinary arrangement of the columnar rugarum upon the inner surface of the vagina. This specimen has more of the cylindri- form figure than the former one, and at its upper end is a de- j pression corresponding with the cervix uteri. The chief differences between this and the former specimen are, that the cast is here evidently that of a narrower and more tubular canal, and exhibits the rugae which are wanting in the former: differences which I have no doubt depend upon the