Ectopic pregnancy; its etiology, classification, embryology, diagnosis and treatment.

  • Webster, John Clarence, 1863-1950.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ectopic pregnancy; its etiology, classification, embryology, diagnosis and treatment. 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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    the so-called tubal gestation having really been a horn preg- nancy. Moreover, the foetuses found may have been twins, the smaller shrivelled one corresponding to the fcd%i8 papyraceus found in some cases of plural conception in uterine pregnancy; they may have developed in the same or in adjacent parts of the tube to begin with. Kecently, H. C. Coe^ has described an interesting case of this condition which is beyond dispute. A patient who had carried the remains of a tubal or tubo-ligamentous gestation for twelve years became pregnant, the gestation occurring in the same tube external to the old sac. It is interesting to note, also, that the corpus luteum was found only in the ovary of the non-pregnant side, the case therefore appearing to be one of external wandering of the ovum. It is difficult to understand how the ovum could have passed the old gestation. The explanation probably is that the old gestation had ruptured into the broad ligament, and had gradually become absorbed, the tube closing again and remaining pervious. It may, of course, be suggested by some that the ovum had passed to the opposite side through the peritoneal cavity—external wandering. Bland Sutton^ believes that repeated gestation in the same tube is an impossibility, on account of the alterations in the tube caused by pregnancy. This I consider true for cases where a gestation has advanced as to affect the whole tube, but in cases where it has very early been destroyed, the ovum having disappeared, and the tube having remained pervious, so that an ovum could still pass along it, there is no reason why it should not again offer a place of development for a future gestation. 1 Internal Migration of the Ovum, &c.. Trans. Amer. Gyn. Soc, vol. xviii. 2 Op. cit, p. 367.