United States or Somalia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Perhaps the venous hæmorrhages obey the lunar periods, as the catamenia, and hæmorrhoids. The periods of the hæmorrhoids, or piles, in some recur monthly, in others only at the greater lunar influence about the equinoxes.
Brierre de Boismont records cases of catamenia at five, seven, and eight years; and Skene mentions a girl who menstruated at ten years and five months. She was in the lowest grade of society, living with a drunken father in a tenement house, and was of wretched physical constitution, quite ignorant, and of low moral character, as evinced by her specific vaginitis.
Whence it is believed, that women are more liable to become pregnant at or about the time of their catamenia, than at the intermediate times; and on this account they are seldom much mistaken in their reckoning of nine lunar periods from the last menstruation; the inattention to this may sometimes have been the cause of supposed barrenness, and is therefore worth the observation of those, who wish to have children.
In support of this view he calls attention to the pigmentation of the skin which occurs during pregnancy and chlorosis, showing that the absence of the catamenia results in the retention in the blood of some substance which would normally be excreted at this time.
In her case, as a rule, unfortunately there are too many exceptions to it, the catamenia have been established; the function is in good running order; the reproductive apparatus the engine within an engine has been constructed, and she will not be called upon to furnish force for building it again.
Dodd describes a case in which the catamenia were on the 24th of June, 1838, and continued a week; the woman bore twins on January 11, 1839, one of which survived, the other dying a few minutes after birth. She was never irregular, prompt to the hour, and this fact, coupled with the diminutive size of the children, seemed to verify the duration of the pregnancy.
The other weighed 24 ounces. They both lived to adult life; the larger married and was the mother of two children, which she bore easily. The other did not marry, and although not a dwarf, was under-sized; she had her catamenia every third week. Post describes a 2-pound child. On the other hand, there have been infants characterized by their enormous size at birth.
McGraw illustrates vicarious menstruation by an example, the discharge issuing from an ovariotomy-scar, and Hooper cites an instance in which the vicarious function was performed by a sloughing ulcer. Buchanan and Simpson describe "amenorrheal ulcers." Dupuytren speaks of denudation of the skin from a burn, with the subsequent development of vicarious catamenia from the seat of the injury.
No careful obstetrician will deny pregnancy solely on the regular occurrence of the menstrual periods, any more than he would make the diagnosis of pregnancy from the fact of the suppression of menses. Blake reports an instance of catamenia and mammary secretion during pregnancy. Denaux de Breyne mentions a similar case. The child was born by a face-presentation.
Longhi describes the case of a woman of twenty-seven, an epileptic, with metritis and copious catamenia twice a month. She was immoderately addicted to drink and sexual indulgence, and in February, 1835, her menses ceased. On May 8th she was admitted to the hospital with a severe epileptic convulsion, and until the 18th remained in a febrile condition, with abdominal tenderness, etc.
Word Of The Day