Diseases of the ovaries : their diagnosis and treatment . im-pairing their nutrition, and disturbing their functions. Butthe pressure of the gravid uterus is as great, or even greater, anda woman in pregnancy has sometimes to endure annoyances oreven real miseries. Still the process is natural, and there arecompensations in the shape of local adjustments, and tem-porary accommodating changes of form, and mental considera-tions, and moral influences, which are wanting to the victimof ovarian disease. Instead of being cheered by the hopesand aspirations of maternity, she has to bear the torture
Diseases of the ovaries : their diagnosis and treatment . im-pairing their nutrition, and disturbing their functions. Butthe pressure of the gravid uterus is as great, or even greater, anda woman in pregnancy has sometimes to endure annoyances oreven real miseries. Still the process is natural, and there arecompensations in the shape of local adjustments, and tem-porary accommodating changes of form, and mental considera-tions, and moral influences, which are wanting to the victimof ovarian disease. Instead of being cheered by the hopesand aspirations of maternity, she has to bear the torture ofsuspense or despair; her blood is impoverished, and hernervous system shattered by imperfect assimilation ; and oneis justified in more than suspecting a local protesting resist-ance to the growth of the invading tumour. After a time, theemaciation, always going on, and the weary, cheerless self- 86 PHYSIOGNOMY IN OVARIAN DISEASE. watchings, made inevitable by the incapacity to use healthfulexercise or to undertake the usual occupations with success,. chisel out the features into the peculiar pinched expressionwhich has been described as the fades uteri na, but whichwould probably be better named fades ovariana. The drawing, which is an exact copy of a photographicportrait (by Dr. Wright), gives a very correct idea of thispeculiar physiognomy. The emaciation, the prominent oralmost uncovered muscles and bones, the expression of anxietyand suffering, the furrowed forehead (not sufficiently markedin the drawing), the sunken eyes, the open, sharply-definednostrils, the long compressed lips, the depressed angles of themouth, and the deep wrinkles curving round these angles,form together a face which is strikingly characteristic. The tumour begins to grow on one side, where it occupiesspace wanted for the large intestine with its accumulations,and no provision is made, as for the uterus, for its expansionor for the due maintenance of its relative position in respectto the viscera.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectgynecology, bookyear1
