Medical Gynecology

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MENSTRUATION. Menstruation is a function or physiological process which is performed periodically. It is established when the sexual organs have attained their complete development, and recurs at stated times, excepting during gestation and, as a rule, during lactation. Many theories have been...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MENSTRUATION. Menstruation is a function or physiological process which is performed periodically. It is established when the sexual organs have attained their complete development, and recurs at stated times, excepting during gestation and, as a rule, during lactation. Many theories have been advanced in ancient and modern times regarding the causation of menstruation, but since they differ so much, and since many are so obscure, a discussion of all of them is practically valueless. Menstruation is almost wholly dependent upon the influence of the ovaries in the economy, since the flow is never established in those in whom the ovaries are congenitally absent or anatomically defective. Again, those who have menstruated in a perfectly normal way for years cease to do so, as a rule, when the ovaries are removed. The same cessation of menstruation occurs at the menopause, when the ovaries undergo a retrograde degeneration. I take it, then, that ovulation, which is the essential function of the ovary, is an initial action in the generative cycle and awakens the necessity for menstruation in the uterus. So far, then, as the causation of menstruation arises in the sexual organs, the ovaries are certainly the most important factor. It has often been observed that ovulation occurs frequently without any apparent relation to menstruation, and that maturity of the ovule in the Graafian follicle occurs in early life before puberty; but ovulation at this time is not complete, since, in most cases of this kind, the ovule degenerates without rupture of the follicle. It has also been observed that ovulation may go on after the menopause, and these facts have been offered in argument against the influence of ovulation, or ovarian function upon menstruation. Modern phy...