MENSTRUATION. 57 



2. From the presence of a corpus luteum, the opening of which is 

 closed, and the cavity reduced or obliterated, only a stellate cicatrix 

 remaining, also no conclusion as to pregnancy having existed or fecunda- 

 tion having occurred can be drawn, if the corpus luteum be of small size, 

 not containing as much yellow substance as would form a mass the size of 

 a small pea. 



3. A similar corpus luteum of larger size than a common pea, would 

 be strong presumptive evidence, not only of impregnation having taken 

 place, but of pregnancy having existed during several weeks at least ; and 

 the evidence would approximate more and more to complete proof in 

 proportion as the size of the corpus luteum was greater. 



What is the nature and purpose of the function of menstruation ? 

 This question has reference chiefly to the theoretical views deduced from 

 the facts detailed in the preceding pages. Bischoff, and the other 

 physiologists, who believe that ova are normally expelled from the ovary 

 at the periods of heat in animals, and of menstruation in the human 

 female, regard those two states, heat and menstruation, as perfectly 

 analogous. The essential character of both, according to their view, is 

 the maturation and extrusion of ova. In both there is a state of active 

 congestion of the sexual organs, sympathizing with the ovaries at the 

 time of the highest degree of development of the Graafian follicles ; and 

 menstruation is only the crisis of this state of congestion.* 



This theory is principally based, first on the long admitted fact that the 

 changes which take place in the female system at the time of puberty, 

 and the periodic recurrence of menstruation from that epoch to the end 

 of the fruitful period of woman's life, are dependent on the presence and 

 healthy condition of the ovaries ; secondly, on the fact, which has also 

 long been known, that at every period of menstruation, as at every period 

 of heat in female animals, a vascular turgescence of the ovaries takes 

 place ; and thirdly, on the more recently alleged fact, that at the period 

 of menstruation in women, as well as at the time of heat in animals, ova 

 are normally extruded from the ovaries. 



The two main arguments used by those physiologists who have denied 

 the existence of an analogy between heat and menstruation, are 

 that the heat is characterized by an excited state of sexual desire in 

 the female, and by the occurrence of coitus at that time exclusively, 

 while the menstruating woman has no strong feeling of sexual desire, and 

 is repulsive to the male sex; and that a true menstrual discharge of 

 bloody fluid is not observed in animals. 



* Raciborski, Op. Cit. p. 446. See also Dr. Lee's remarks in Cyclop, of Med. Art. 

 Ovary ; and M. Pouchet's, in his work, Theorie Positive de la Fecondation, p. 87, ct seq. ; 

 and more recently in an enlarged edition of this work under the title of Theorie Positive de 

 1'Ovulation Spontanee et de la Fecondation des Mammif. et de 1'espece humaine. Paris, 

 Bailliere, 1847, p. 227, et seq. 



