FROM THE HUMAN OVARY. 49 



may be regarded as signs of their maturity. And experiments, such as the 

 one on the bitch just quoted from Bischoff, seem to show that the turgid 

 state of the Graafian follicles is preparatory to their spontaneous rupture 

 and the discharge of the matured ova. 



It is almost impossible to doubt, therefore, that in mammiferous animals 

 every period of heat is normally accompanied, not merely by a vascular 

 turgescence of the ovaries and their Graafian follicles, but also by the ma- 

 turation of a certain number of ova, and their extrusion from the follicles 

 which contained them; and that all this takes place independently of 

 sexual intercourse. 



We have now to inquire whether the human female is subject, in this 

 respect, to the same law as the female of other mammiferous animals ; 

 whether ova are discharged from the human ovary under any other circum- 

 stances than those of impregnation ; and, supposing this first question to be 

 answered in the affirmative, whether the maturation and discharge of ova 

 occurs periodically at the epochs of menstruation. 



Respecting the former of these questions scarcely any doubt can be 

 entertained. Ovarian follicles recently ruptured have been seen so fre- 

 quently, and by so many independent observers,* in the ovaries of virgins 

 or women who could not have been recently impregnated, that it must be 

 regarded as certain that the follicles of the human ovary do burst from 

 other causes than impregnation or sexual connexion ; and although it is 

 true that the ova discharged under these circumstances have not hitherto 

 been discovered in the Fallopian tube, yet analogy forbids us to doubt that 

 in the human female, as in the domestic quadrupeds, the result and purpose 

 of the rupture of the follicles is the discharge of the ova. Whether the 

 maturation of ova and the discharge of them from the ruptured follicles in 

 the human female takes place periodically at the epochs of menstruation, 

 cannot, at present, perhaps, be decided with absolute certainty ; but the 

 evidence in favour of the affirmative of the question greatly preponderates. 



In the first place, it is agreed by all authors who have touched on the 

 point, except Dr. Ritchie, that no traces of follicles having burst are ever 

 seen in the ovaries before puberty or the first menstruation. Secondly, all 

 the writers who have described the particulars of the cases in which the 

 ovarian follicles were found burst independently of sexual intercourse, with 

 the exception again of Dr. Ritchie, state that the women were at the time 

 menstruating, or had very recently passed through the menstrual state. 



* Sir E. Home, Phil. Trans. 1817. Dr. Blundell, Physiol. and Pathol. Researches, 1824, 

 p. 56, Med. Chir. Trans. 1819, p. 268. Dr. Lee, Cyclopedia of Medicine, Art. Ovary. 

 1834; Lectures on Theory and Practice of Midwifery, 1844. Gendrin, M6d. Pratique, t. i. 

 p. 28. W. Jones, Practical Observations on Diseases of Women, 1839, p. 157. Paterson, 

 Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. liii. Laycock, Medical Gazette, 1840. Devaix, Ga- 

 zette Medicale. Raciborski, Bischoff. Girdwood, Dr. Ritchie, Pouchet, loc. citat. M. Serres, 

 Comptes Rendus, Nov. 18, 1844. 



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