NON-VIRULENT CATARRH OF THE VAGINA. 



walking, sitting, and moving the body. The secretion, wliich in this 

 stage is yellowish-green, thick, and purulent, often oozes up in large 

 quantities between the labia ; in the vulva and its vicinity, even to the 

 anus, we find shallow ulcers, which are not to be confounded with 

 chancres. We may almost always press pus out of the urethra. Af- 

 ter the disease has lasted a fortnight or three weeks, the pain abates 

 and ceases ; the discharge loses its purulent appearance, but continues 

 a long while till the secretion, which constantly becomes more mucous, 

 dries up, and loses its power of inoculation. 



TREATMENT. The local treatment, which we preferred to internal 

 remedies for gonorrhoea in men, is almost exclusively used for the dis- 

 ease in women. Considering the different seats of gonorrhoea in the 

 two sexes, it may be readily understood that copaiba or cubebs, whose 

 active constituents are excreted with the urine, may have an effect on 

 gonorrhoea in the male urethra that it cannot have on the disease in 

 the female, where the vagina is chiefly affected. While there is se- 

 vere pain; we prescribe scanty diet, laxatives, long-continued sitz- 

 baths, during which a speculum should be left in the vagina, if its in- 

 troduction be not too painful. If there be no symptoms of inflamma- 

 tion, or if they have been allayed, we may employ injections of solu 

 tions of tannin, nitrate of silver, alum, sulphate of zinc, acetate of 

 lead, etc. Injections of plumbi acet. crystall. 3 iij. Aquas conj. j, as 

 recommended by Ricord, are very efficacious ; instead of being inject- 

 ed, this solution may be poured in through a speculum, and the latter 

 slowly withdrawn, so that the fluid shall come in contact with all parts 

 of the vagina. In very obstinate cases we may introduce wads of 

 charpie, sprinkled with alum, into the vagina, or touch the parts with 

 solid nitrate of silver. 



CHAPTER II. 



NON-VIRULENT CATARRH OP THE VAGINA. 



ETIOLOGY. Kolliker and Scanzoni, who have carefully examined 

 the secretion from the vaginal mucous membrane, both in health and 

 disease, found perfectly healthy secretion in very few women, and onty 

 in those who had had no children, and had not frequently indulged in 

 coitus. It was so scanty that the surface of the mucous membrane was 

 dnly lubricated by it ; it was nearly as clear as water, fluid, only viscid, 

 white or yellowish in spots ; it was almost always acid, and, besides a 

 small amount of pavement epithelium, it contained no noticeable solid 

 constituents. Shortly before and after menstruation the secretion was 

 more copious, always fluid, and almost always acid ; at this time ii 



