10 THE GENITAL GLANDS 



^' Internal Secretions of the Ovary. — One internal 

 secretion controls menstruation. Another, or the 

 same, appears to act upon the vasomotor system ; 

 when it is withdrawn by artificial removal of the 

 ovaries or by the cessation of their function at the 

 menopause, the patient often suffers from flushings, 

 headaches, and other neuroses. 



Under these same circumstances the breasts, 

 uterus, and vagina atrophy, and obesity may develop. 

 The influence over breast tissue extends even to 

 cancerous tumours growing in it ; double oophor- 

 ectomy in a considerable number of cases of inoperable 

 cancer has caused retrogression of the growth, and 

 once or twice, apparently, a cure has resulted. On 

 the other hand, pregnancy shortly after removal of 

 cancerous breast usually leads to recurrence, and 

 during pregnancy a cancer of the breast grows with 

 frightful rapidity. 



We do not possess much information as to the 

 consequences of removal of both ovaries in little 

 girls. A statement appears in some books that the 

 operation is performed in Persia, and that women of 

 a masculine type result, but this is a traveller's tale. 



The symptoms of the artificial menopause following 

 double oophorectomy may be much reheved by 

 grafting a piece of the patient's ovary, or less satis- 

 factorily, that from another person, into the 

 abdominal wall. In some cases menstruation has 

 remained unaflected, and when the graft has been 

 into the peritoneum, it is said that pregnancy has 

 occurred.* 



* See Archiv. gen. chirurg., 191 1, p. 550. 



