Page:Clinical Lectures on the Diseases of Women.djvu/67



diseases to be now considered are various forms of internal inflammation. That pathological condition is the cause of the most frequent, and therefore—and for other reasons—the most important diseases of women. Inflammations not of distinct organs, as of the uterus or of the ovaries, are divided into two sets— perimetric and parametric. To-day we consider inflammations in the former category. When I say "inflammations not of special organs," I do not wish you to understand that inflammation of special organs, as ovaritis or metritis, has nothing to do with the diseases under consideration; for, although we speak, for example, of metritis and of perimetritis separately, yet the metritis, or it may be, ovaritis, is frequently the cause of the perimetritis, and error as to the frequency of inflammation of special female organs arises from neglecting this circumstance.

There are three kinds of perimetritis—adhesive, serous, purulent. Of these three the purulent is the most important, including, as it does, a large number of what are called pelvic abscesses; but of the purulent form I have no time to say anything at present. There may be another kind of perimetritis characterised by dryness and slight roughness of the peritoneum; but, from the deep position of Douglas's space in the body, this form of inflammation has, so far as I know, never been recognised in this situation. It is