An anatomical description of the human gravid uterus and its contents / By the late William Hunter, M.D.

  • Hunter, William, 1718-1783.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An anatomical description of the human gravid uterus and its contents / By the late William Hunter, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be said to have a sufficiently direct application to the point at issue. They were made upon an unimpregnated uterus, and merely show that he succeeded in tracing several nerves which he ‘‘ recognised, from their situation round the uterus and upon the body of the uterus,” to be similar to those which Dr. Lee had previously pointed out to him. There can be no more doubt that what Mr. Dalrymple examined were really nerves, than that the uterus itself is an organ supplied with nerves ; but his observations fail entirely in touching the ques- tion as to whether the bands or tracts of whitish matter, which form So prominent and peculiar a feature in Dr. Lee’s researches, are really nervous. The description which Dr. Lee himself has given as to the appear- ance of these masses would scarcely lead to the supposition of their being really nervous; thus he designates one as ‘“‘ a dense reddish- brown coloured mass, consisting of fibres firmly interlaced together.” He describes the posterior subperitoneal ganglion as presenting “‘ the appearance of a layer of dense structure, composed of fibres strongly interlaced together, having a yellowish-brown colour. It adheres firmly to the peritoneum ; but between its lower surface and the mus- cular coat of the uterus, there is interposed a thick soft layer of cel- lular substance, through which filaments and branches of considera- ble size pass to the muscular coat of the uterus.”—(PAil. Trans., 1842, p. 176.) Indeed, Dr. Lee appears to express a conscious doubt as to the nervous structure of these masses, for he does not describe them as continuous or identical, but as merely ‘‘ coalescing” with the branches of the hypogastric or spermatic nerves. The appearance of the uterine nerves, as described by Professor Tiedemann, is of a very different character to that given in the above quotations. ‘‘ Nervi uteri, sicut illi cordis, tenues, molles, et rubelli sunt.” And it is particularly deserving of notice that these nerves, when traced into the substance of the uterus, even with the aid of the microscope, appear to lose themselves in cellular tissue. ‘‘ Surculi nervei substantiam uteri ingressi subito evanescunt, et ipsis oculis bene armatis se subducunt; videntur terminari, vel potius solvi in telam cellulosam seu mucosam, que inter vasa sanguinea et lympha- tica, necnon inter fibras carneas, media est.” Dr. Lee, in his large work upon the nerves of the uterus, has quoted the entire chapter by Dr. W. Hunter, upon this subject ; and in some more recent observations (Phil. Trans., 1842) he remarks that, ‘as Dr. Hunter never examined the nerves of the unimpregnated uterus, and saw the nerves of the gravid uterus dissected only in one subject, he did not certainly know that they increased after conception.” It is