History of the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of the ganglia and nerves, and of the action of the heart / by Robert Lee.

  • Lee, Robert, 1793-1877.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of the ganglia and nerves, and of the action of the heart / by Robert Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    On the 1st January, 1841, The Anatomy of the Nerves of the Uterus, with three engravings, was published, in which I described ten dissections which I had made of the Ganglia and Nerves of the Unimpregnated and Gravid Uterus. In a paper On the Nervous Ganglia of the Uterus, published with two engravings in the Philosophical Trans- actions for 1841, I stated, as the result of dissections I had made of the unimpregnated uterus, and of the gravid uterus in the third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and ninth months of pregnancy, that there are many large ganglia on the uterine nerves, and on those of the vagina and bladder, which increase with the coats, blood-vessels, and absorbents of the uterus during pregnancy, and which return after parturition to their original condition before conception takes place. In an Appendix to this paper, published in the Philo- sophical Transactions for 1842, with an engraving, I described and delineated two great ganglia on the sides of the neck of the uterus, in which the hypogastric and spinal nerves termi- nate, and from which numerous nerves proceed to the uterus, vagina, bladder, and rectum. Other ganglia and nerves were described and delineated, which were situated under the peri- toneum of the body of the uterus. These dissections prove, I observed, that the human uterus possesses a great system of nerves, which enlarges with the coats, blood-vessels, and absorbents during pregnancy, and which returns after partu- rition to its original condition before conception takes place. It is chiefly by the influence of these ganglia and nerves that the uterus performs the varied functions of menstruation, con- ception, and parturition, and it is solely by their means that the whole fabric of the nervous system sympathizes with the different morbid ^affections of the uterus. If these ganglia and nerves of the uterus could not be demonstrated, its physiology and pathology would be completely inexplicable. In the Memoirs on the Ganglia and Nerves of the Uterus, published by me in 1849, I have given a correct history of B