Chapter XX: Front Matter (20)

[Footnote 59: _Archives de Tocologie_, Février, 1883, p. 122.]

Flatus is another annoying symptom, which, however, can very generally be dispelled by turning the patient over on her side and inserting a flexible catheter high up in the rectum. If this fails to relieve it, enemata of turpentine may be tried, or five-drop doses of the tincture of nux vomica may be given every two hours. Should the abdomen become painfully bloated, the binder must be loosened and the adhesive straps {334} nicked in several places. The painful tension on the stitches can be relieved by drawing the knees up and supporting them over a pillow doubled on itself. Should the flatus not yield, and symptoms of obstruction set in, the bowels must be opened at all hazards. Castor oil and Epsom salts are good cathartics for this purpose. When vomiting accompanies obstruction, calomel answers best, because it is not so liable to be rejected.

For the first thirty-six to forty-eight hours after the operation nothing whatever should be given to the patient excepting cracked ice, sips of hot tea or of barley-water, and an occasional teaspoonful of old whiskey. After that time tablespoonful doses of milk, of beef-tea, of thin oatmeal gruel, or of barley-water can be given every hour or two. The diet may then be cautiously increased, and especially after wind begins to escape from the rectum, the patient being enjoined not to hold it back from motives of delicacy. If the condition of the patient is such as to demand more nourishment, it had better be taken by the rectum. For a week the urine should be drawn off by the nurse, and the bowels kept quiet by a morning and an evening suppository. No other anodyne need be given unless called for by pain, wakefulness, or restlessness. Should the body-heat indicate a temperature of 101° or over, a bladder filled with broken ice, or, what is far better, a rubber ice-cap, should be kept on the head of the patient as long as it feels comfortable and does not chill her. If the temperature does not fall, and peritonitis or other septic symptoms set in, ice should also be applied to the pit of the stomach. Quinia and morphia must then be given in very large doses, preferably by the rectum, together with ten drops of the tincture of digitalis every hour until the pulse-rate is lessened and the temperature falls.

When a full week has elapsed the bowels should be opened; and, as this is a matter of importance, and is occasionally attended with symptoms of obstruction and with a good deal of constitutional disturbance, a few words will not come amiss. If the hardened feces can be softened down and dislodged by enemata, this is perhaps the best plan, clysters of ox-gall and water or of glycerin and water being the most efficient. But in my experience enemata have so often failed that I rarely resort to them in the first instance. If the woman's stomach is not irritable, I prefer to give her an ounce of castor oil. This is disguised in the compound syrup of sarsaparilla or in some other suitable vehicle, as warm milk, and is brought to her without any previous warning early on the morning of the eighth day. Should it be deemed unwise to try the oil, two Lady Webster pills and two compound cathartic pills can be given at bedtime of the seventh day, or a pill containing three grains of the compound extract of colocynth with one grain of the extract of hyoscyamus may be swallowed every four hours. The compound licorice powder of the German Pharmacopoeia, to which has been added potassium bitartrate, also answers well, provided the patient's stomach will bear teaspoonful doses every four hours. Should these remedies fail to act, they must be supplemented by enemata.

Fatal obstruction of the bowels from matting or from constricting bands of organized lymph has been frequently reported. Thus far, I have met with one fatal case, which, however, passed out of my hands after the operation. But occasionally I see cases of obstinate {335} constipation which give me great uneasiness and put me to my wits' ends. In one case, after the failure of other remedies the obstruction was overcome by broken doses of calomel combined with sodium bicarbonate, and by the distension of the lower bowel with very large enemata slowly given. Another desperate case yielded to repeated doses of tincture of belladonna. A third case, complicated by obstinate vomiting, was saved by ten grains of calomel given every two hours until the bowels were moved. Seventy grains were thus administered before the desired effect was attained, yet salivation did not occur.

When symptoms of obstruction once present themselves, they are likely to recur. The contents of the bowel should therefore be kept fluid, and for this purpose I know nothing better than the German compound licorice powder, given in teaspoonful doses at bedtime.

Suppression of urine sometimes follows ovariotomy, and in cases of diseased kidney is an alarming complication for this condition. For this symptom digitalis and the acetate of potassium should be given. Thornton treats it by baring the arms and packing them in towels which are kept wet with ice-water.

Tetanus may destroy the life of a patient while convalescing from the operation of ovariotomy. J. M. Bennett reports such a case.[60] The symptoms first showed themselves on the sixteenth day, and the woman died two days later. Chloral in drachm doses, administered by the bowel in the yolk of an egg, is perhaps the only remedy from which any good can be expected.

[Footnote 60: _Lancet_, Dec. 3, 1881.]

Occasionally, a few days after the operation, without any septic symptoms whatever or without any marked rise in the temperature, the parotid glands grow tender, swell up, and run through a course precisely like mumps, ending in resolution. This complication has been met with so frequently by myself and others that it cannot be a mere coincidence, but must be due to a reverse sympathy between the ovaries and these glands. It does not appear to increase the risk of the patient, for recovery took place in all the reported cases, of which three occurred in my own practice.[61] Parotid bubo may also take place after ovariotomy, but this sign of blood-poisoning, being a general one, happens as well after other grave surgical operations and during the course of specific fevers. Yet from the sympathetic relation between the parotid glands and the sexual organs it seems to occur more frequently in the septicæmia following ovariotomy.

[Footnote 61: Wm. Goodell, _Transactions of American Gynæcological Society_, 1885.]

Acute mania sometimes follows ovariotomy, especially when both ovaries have been removed. The attack is usually temporary, but it sometimes ends in insanity, and even in death, as in one of my own patients. Keith, Thornton, Tait, and other leading ovariotomists report analogous cases.[62]

[Footnote 62: _The British Medical Journal_, March 21, 1885, p. 597.]

SURGICAL TREATMENT.--The dressings, being antiseptic, need not, as a rule, be removed until the day following that on which the bowels are moved. Every other stitch may then be removed, and especially all that are loose or are cutting the tissues. The wound is then washed with a 2.5 per cent. solution of carbolic acid, and dressed anew with salicylated {336} cotton. I usually find the first dressing so sweet that I am able to reapply the unsoiled portion of it for a second dressing. A clean binder is now pinned on and the woman's clothing changed. Three or four days later all the stitches should be removed, the wound secured by narrow adhesive strips, and dressed as before. For fear of a weak cicatrix and the formation of a hernia at the site of the wound, the patient should not get out of bed until fully three weeks have elapsed, and should for as many months wear some kind of close-fitting gored binder or abdominal supporter.

If, before the week is over, the dressings become soiled or give out a bad odor, they should be at once renewed. They should also be removed whenever a high temperature, without being accompanied by tympanites, leads to the suspicion of cutaneous abscesses.

THE ACCIDENTS AND COMPLICATIONS OF OVARIOTOMY.--When by the breaking up of adhesions to it the liver is wounded, the bleeding surface can usually be stanched, as Koeberle has shown, by the ferric subsulphate applied to the raw surface by the finger. If this fails the actual cautery at a dull heat should be used.

If, unfortunately, an adherent portion of the bowel is torn open, the wound should be carefully closed with very fine silk by the continuous suture. The sutured portion is then fastened to the lower angle of the abdominal wound as a safeguard in case of the subsequent formation of stercoral fistula.[63] Should the intestine be injured to any extent, the wound must be closed by two sets of fine silk sutures, the first set uniting the mucous edges of the wound by the continuous suture, the other set uniting one serous coat to the other at a line about one quarter of an inch distant from the wound. An ordinary cambric needle with fine sewing-silk will answer admirably for this purpose. In small wounds one continuous suture, carried through all the coats but the mucous, will suffice. A mere puncture can be closed by hooking it up and surrounding it by a single fine ligature.

[Footnote 63: "Discussion on a Paper by Garrigues," _Am. Gynæcol. Soc. Trans._, 1881.]

Wounds of the bladder have frequently happened, but they are by no means necessarily fatal.[64] These accidents are liable to occur when the bladder, being adherent to the cyst and carried upward by it, lies directly under the line of incision, or the bladder may be torn open while adhesions to it are being severed. The wound should at once be grasped by a pressure-forceps, the bladder emptied by the catheter, and the operation proceeded with. When the operation has been completed the wound in the bladder is attended to, and in one of the following ways: Either the vesical wound is brought up within the lips of the abdominal incision, and is closed by being included in the abdominal stitches, or it is closed by the continuous or Glover's suture, without including the mucous membrane in the stitches. A self-retaining catheter, such as the Skene-Goodman, must then be kept in the bladder for at least a week.

[Footnote 64: Eustache, _Archives de Tocologie_, April and May, 1880, pp. 193, 277; _Boston Med. and Surg. Journal_, Feb. 16, 1882, p. 153; _British Med. Journ._, Jan. 28, 1882, p. 115; _Am. Journ. Med. Sci._, Jan., 1883, p. 123.]

One of the ureters will sometimes be torn across while pelvic adhesions are being broken up. This accident is most likely to happen during the enucleation of a cyst growing downward because enveloped in the folds {337} of the broad ligament. It is almost always fatal, and is usually not discovered during the life of the patient, and, I am disposed to think, not often discovered after her death. Sometimes, however, urine will ooze out of the abdominal wound, and in rare cases the patient has recovered with a urinary fistula. In such a case Simon[65] successfully removed the corresponding kidney; Nussbaum[66] constructed an artificial ureter leading from the fistula to the bladder; and Tauffer[67] inserted the upper end of the divided ureter into the bladder by an artificial opening. It, however, failed to unite, and he later made an artificial ureter.

[Footnote 65: _Annales de Gynécologie_, June, 1877.]

[Footnote 66: _Edinburgh Medical Journal_, July, 1876, p. 1.]

[Footnote 67: _Archives de Tocologie_, Avril, 1880, p. 201.]

When an umbilical or a ventral hernia of moderate size is present at the time of the operation, efforts should be made for its radical cure. This is done by cutting out the thinned-out sac by two incisions meeting below and above, and by bringing together the thick edges of the abdominal wall in the final closure of the wound.

In cases of ascites complicating ovariotomy the ascitic fluid should not be wholly removed until the cyst has been cut off and the wound is ready to be closed. By this means any blood oozing from broken adhesions, or any fluid escaping from the cyst into the abdominal cavity, being diluted, is less likely to irritate the peritoneum, the cavity of which can also be more readily cleansed.

When a patient seems in danger of dying on the table from shock or from exhaustion the anæsthetic should be withheld while hypodermic injections of ether and enemata of brandy are given. Warmth should also be applied to the body by bottles of hot water, or, what is better, by rubber bags of the same. Theoretically, atropia administered subcutaneously would be the proper remedy, but I have not yet tested it. In all cases of ovariotomy, especially if prolonged, the woman should not be kept profoundly under the influence of the anæsthetic for any length of time, but should be allowed from time to time to come to at least enough to make her flinch or move about. This caution should especially be observed in very feeble patients and in those with very large cysts.

The Removal of Both Ovaries.

Whenever both ovaries are diseased there can be no question about the extirpation. But when only one has undergone cystic or other degeneration the question of the removal of the sound one may come up. There always is a tendency to the subsequent degeneration of the sound ovary after the diseased one has been removed. More especially is this tendency observed in sterile women and in those with malignant affections of the ovary. Many women, therefore, whose lives should have been imperilled but once, have been compelled to face the dangers of a second operation. In view of these facts, it seems to me wise to remove the sound ovary in all cases of sterility, in every case of malignant degeneration of one ovary, and in all women who have either passed the climacteric or are approaching it, provided its removal is not attended with great additional risk. Double extirpation should also be performed whenever the womb {338} contains a fibroid tumor or whenever it seems desirable to hasten on the climacteric. In these convictions I am further strengthened by the disappointment often expressed to me by my patients that one ovary had been left behind, and by their great fear afterward lest the remaining organ should also become diseased. On the other hand, in women who are in the prime of their menstrual life the sound ovary should be left untouched, unless there exist grave reasons for its removal.

{339}

DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS IN WOMEN.

BY ALEXANDER J. C. SKENE, M.D.

ORGANIC DISEASES OF THE BLADDER.

Hyperæmia.

This is an acute congestion of the mucous membrane due to a disturbance in the balance of the circulation. It may be common to both bladder and urethra, or limited to either; may terminate within a short period of time (a few hours), or it may go on and end in hemorrhage or inflammation. If the mucous membrane is seen with the endoscope, it appears of a bright-red color; the blood-vessels are distended, more prominent, and apparently more numerous. The arteries are the first to be affected. If the cause is transient, this is all that is seen, the membrane returning to its usual color. When the congestion is of a higher grade, rupture of some of the vessels occurs either on the free surface or beneath the epithelium. The venous side of the circulation now becomes more prominent. In a few cases the above order may be reversed, the veins being the first congested, as in the case of a sudden interference with the portal circulation.

SYMPTOMS.--The attack occurs suddenly. Frequent but painless urination is the most prominent feature. There is a sense of heat and heaviness in the bladder, aggravated by standing. When the urethra is involved the patient complains of scalding during urination. The pulse and temperature are practically normal. The composition of the urine is but little changed; there may be excess of mucus and a few blood-corpuscles.

DIAGNOSIS.--This has to be made by exclusion. It is apt to be confounded with a neurosis of the bladder or a displacement.

ETIOLOGY.--The most frequent cause is exposure to cold, especially during menstruation; over-taxation in walking or using the sewing-machine; excessive venereal indulgence; disorders of the portal circulation; and the use of improper articles of food.

TREATMENT.--Every means should be employed to equalize the circulation. The most important element is rest in the recumbent position. Diaphoretics and warm applications to the feet and epigastrium, and, as a rule, a saline laxative. Where there is frequent urination and vesical tenesmus and pain, Dover's powder and camphor should be given, or a suppository of morphia and belladonna by the vagina.

{340} Hemorrhage.

This is a symptom rather than a disease itself. It is usually due to acute congestion or ulceration occurring in advanced inflammations, new growths, or the lacerations caused by foreign bodies and instruments. Hemorrhoids of the bladder due to obstructed circulation is not infrequently the source of the bleeding. The amount of blood transuded varies very greatly, though it is seldom so great as to prostrate the patient. In all cases when it is considerable it is of great importance to localize the bleeding point. The urethra can be excluded if there is no bleeding between the acts of micturition. The differential diagnosis between hemorrhage from the bladder or kidney is less easy. The old rule, that the blood and urine are more intimately mixed in renal hemorrhage than in cystic, is of little service. Sir Henry Thompson's method of detecting the source of pus in the urine may be employed in cases of hemorrhage. He introduces a soft catheter, and then washes out the bladder gently with warm water; if after a time the water comes out clear, the inference is that the bleeding point is higher up. To make sure, he corks the catheter until a drachm of urine has collected; if this is bloody, the diagnosis of its being extra-cystic is tolerably certain. With the endoscope it is occasionally possible, and always desirable, to locate the bleeding point.

The symptoms in hemorrhage from the bladder, besides the actual appearance of blood in the urine, are much the same as those in hyperæmia. Other symptoms liable to arise are from blood-clots forming and either being passed by the urethra, causing its distension and impeding micturition, or else such clots may be retained and accumulate in the bladder, giving rise to still greater functional disturbance, until they are either broken into small pieces by the surgeon and extracted, or else by the slower agency of decomposition they break down and come away.

TREATMENT.--The first thing is to obtain the advantages, both mechanical and physiological, of the recumbent position. A large number of hæmostatics have been used--tannic and gallic acids, ergot, and aromatic sulphuric acid. These are doubtless of some value, but we prefer giving opium in sufficient doses to allay the desire of too frequent micturition, and at the same time to render the urine more bland by alkaline diluent drinks. When the bleeding points can be discovered with the endoscope, they may be touched with caustic acid, nitrate of silver, or persulphate of iron. But such applications must be made with the greatest care, lest inflammation and ulceration result. Ice in the vagina and at the hypogastrium may be tried when other means fail. When the hemorrhage is hemorrhoidal, due to impeded venous return owing to pressure of the gravid uterus, the treatment will have to be purely palliative in the mean time, as the pathological condition of the veins usually rights itself after delivery. When a large blood-clot forms in the bladder, experience has abundantly shown that it is better not to meddle with it, but to let it break down itself and come away, the patient being kept easy--if necessary by opium and alkaline diluents.

{341} Cystitis.

Inflammation may be limited to the bladder alone, in which case we call it cystitis, or to the urethra alone, when it is termed urethritis. But, practically, the pathological processes and the causes of cystitis and urethritis are so closely allied that it will be convenient in our limited space to consider them together. Like inflammation of other mucous membranes, various forms or degrees of cystitis and urethritis are described: these classifications are useful clinically, but it should not be forgotten that the pathological conditions presented are only different stages of the same process. Inflammations of the bladder are divided according to the cause of the disease and the character of structural lesions into--the acute, including the catarrhal and the suppurative; and the chronic, including the ulcerative, interstitial (and peri-cystitis); and the specific, embracing the gangrenous, croupous or diphtheritic, and gonorrhoeal, in which the inflammation is the result of a special poison.

ETIOLOGY.--The causes of cystitis may be classed under four heads: (1) Direct injuries, such as blows in the vesical region, falls, fracture of the pelvic bones, violent copulation, sudden uterine displacements causing pressure, foreign bodies, rough catheterization, over-distension from retention of urine, and, above all, contusions and injuries during labor. (2) Abnormal urine, from improper food or malnutrition and certain irritating drugs (cantharides) and irritating deposits of urine salts. (3) Certain constitutional diseases (eruptive fevers, gout, ague). (4) Inflammation of adjacent organs, hyperæmia due to cold.

PATHOLOGY.--The acute forms always begin with hyperæmia, then follow swelling, perverted or hyper-secretion, then exfoliation of epithelium, giving rise to a roughened and denuded state of the mucous membrane, particularly on the top of the rugæ, the products of inflammation accumulating within the sulci, and finally the formation of pus. A description of these, the ordinary phenomena of inflammation of mucous membranes, it is quite unnecessary to give here, but there are one or two modifying conditions in cystitis that are of great importance and need consideration. The first of these is the effect which the function of the bladder as a reservoir of urine has on the inflammation. Normal urine is irritating to an inflamed mucous membrane, and in cystitis it soon undergoes decomposition, becomes alkaline, and hence more irritating. The main agent in producing this decomposition is mucus, which is secreted abnormally both in quantity and quality. It acts injuriously in two ways, its fixed alkali tending to neutralize the acid of the urine, which in the early stages of cystitis is often hyper-acid, and in promoting the decomposition of the urea and thereby liberating the volatile carbonate of ammonia. As the urine becomes more alkaline the precipitation of the phosphates of lime and magnesia occurs, and the formation of the triple or ammonio-magnesian phosphate.

The irritant effect of these salts, really deposits of foreign bodies, on the inflamed mucous membrane completes the vicious circle, the effect now aiding the original cause.

Another most important point in the pathology of cystitis is the effect of over-distension of the bladder. This is itself sometimes the primary cause of the trouble, as in certain neuroses, but more frequently it is the {342} effect of certain injuries during delivery. The mechanism of its production is not very clearly made out. It usually follows long, tedious deliveries, during which either the child's head or sometimes the forceps crushes the urethra against the unyielding pubic bones, giving rise to an acute urethritis, with swelling of the membrane and blocking up of the canal, causing retention. The primary injury is not done, as a rule, to the bladder in these cases, for if it were we should find the vesical neck the seat of sloughing of the mucous membrane; but, as a fact, this is the part (owing to its more loose connections with the underlying connective tissue) that most frequently escapes. This danger of over-distension is so clearly recognized that the catheter is nearly always used both before and after delivery if there should be retention. But a condition more apt to mislead both the doctor and the nurse is the urine dribbling away either constantly or intermittently. This is too often ascribed to an irritable bladder causing frequent micturition, when it is a sign of over-distension, the dribbling always occurring as soon as the mechanical pressure of the urine is sufficient to overcome the resistance of the swollen parts.

We have already referred to this condition of over-distension as a cause of inflammation; it will suffice to say that it may, if unrelieved, produce a partial or even total slough of the mucous membrane of the bladder; but, fortunately, this is rare.

Thus far we have spoken of the common forms of acute and subacute cystitis; it only remains to say a word with regard to its rarer manifestations. The inflammation may extend to the submucous coats, becoming interstitial cystitis. Again, this may limit itself here, or it may extend still deeper to the serous coat, in which case it is known as peri- or epi-cystitis. Peri-cystitis is almost always a secondary disease, arising sometimes from deep ulcerations of the inner coats of the bladder, such as occur in chronic cystitis. More frequently it is but a part of a pelvic peritonitis which originated outside of the bladder itself. The final result of peri-cystitis is to form adhesions between the bladder and the neighboring organs, and thereby prevent distension of the bladder.

A very rare form of gangrenous inflammation has been described, but it is more than doubtful if this ever occurs in women except as the result of mechanical violence or pressure, already described. The specific lesion of croupous or diphtheritic inflammation has occasionally been diagnosticated, either from shreds of false membrane passed by the urethra or by means of the endoscope. Gonorrhoeal inflammation of the bladder has been less carefully observed in women than in men. Still, it is known that this specific inflammation extends to the bladder in some cases, but it does not differ essentially in its pathology, history, or treatment from that arising from other causes; hence it is unnecessary to dwell upon it here.

The pathology of chronic cystitis is characterized by ulceration and sloughing of the tissues involved. They do not differ materially from the same processes elsewhere, except that the salts of the urine are apt to be deposited upon the shreds of dead tissue the products of destructive inflammation. The hard masses thus formed are passed with great pain. They block up the urethra, and are only expelled by extra strong efforts which cause intense suffering.

{343} Lastly, the ulceration may extend through the bladder into the peritoneal cavity and give rise to septic peritonitis and death, or the perforation may take place into the cellular tissue of the roof of the pelvis, and cause a fatal cellulitis.

SYMPTOMS.--The various forms of cystitis being but different stages and degrees of the same disease, their symptoms may be discussed all together. For convenience we shall consider them under three heads: (1) Referable to the organs themselves; (2) Symptoms referable to the neighboring organs; (3) General symptoms.

(1) In all forms of cystitis there is more or less derangement of function, as shown by pain, tenesmus, and frequent micturition. In the mildest form of the trouble there is a frequent desire to pass water, which often comes with unusual force. Micturition is followed by a desire to strain, as if the organ was not fully emptied. This sensation may pass off in a few moments, and not arise again till the next micturition, but in the severer cases it may last continuously. When urethritis is also present there is the additional and characteristic symptom of painful scalding as the urine passes over the inflamed track.

In urethritis alone there is often a desire to urinate frequently, but if the desire is resisted it passes off, and the patient can retain the urine for a long time. This symptom should not be mistaken for the tenesmus of cystitis. In the more advanced stages of the disease, especially as ulcerative changes occur, the tenesmus becomes more violent. The pains also are more diffused, often shooting to the umbilical region. There is often a dull, aching pain in the perineum, and in nearly all cases there is continuous backache, or, more correctly, sacral pain.

The composition of the urine is of great importance. The specific gravity in cystitis does not present any constant change, except that in the chronic forms it is often a little below the normal. The reaction in acute cystitis, at first, at least, is usually acid, whereas in the chronic forms it is almost invariably alkaline. The color at first is not particularly altered; later, unless discolored by blood, it is a pale, dirty yellow. The odor is normal in the acute type, unless where retention has been followed by decomposition, but in the chronic form it is not only ammoniacal, but has a characteristic fleshy or organic smell. The sediment in the acute varieties is mainly light and yellowish, composed of mucus, with some pus generally; in addition there may be blood, epithelium, and the amorphous and triple phosphates. In the chronic forms the sediment is usually heavier and of a darker brownish color. Flakes of pus, shreds of tissue, blood, and epithelium in all stages of growth are more or less present, and in the intensely alkaline conditions of the urine the pus and mucus form a jelly-like, ropy, opaque mass.

Albumen will be found if there is pus in the urine without there being any kidney disease. As the result of a careful analysis of a number of cases of chronic cystitis, the amount of albumen varied from one-sixteenth to one-fifth of the volume of urine. Microscopically, in addition to the pus, mucus, organic shreds, phosphatic and other crystals already spoken of, the most interesting appearances are the various kinds of epithelium. In the advanced stages of chronic cystitis epithelial elements of any kind are very rarely found. It is only in the earlier stages that normal and transitional forms of vesical epithelium are present, and again they {344} reappear on the subsidence of the inflammation. This fact is of great importance, because the transitional forms of bladder-epithelium are often indistinguishable from the permanent forms of the urinary tract higher up. It is thus often impossible to make a differential diagnosis between pyelitis and cystitis from this symptom alone. When renal disease is superadded to cystitis, the characteristic casts will be found and albumen will likely be increased in amount.

(2) The symptoms accompanying cystitis in women referable to the neighboring organs are of some importance, but they very often arise from some coexisting disease of other pelvic organs. It is therefore needless to give a list of all the pelvic pains coincident with cystitis which have been enumerated in the literature of this subject.

(3) The general symptoms are of two classes, toxic and nervous. While all agree that there is no doubt of direct blood-poisoning in cystitis, there has been a great deal of difference of opinion as to how this is effected. I think that there are various agencies at work in this. First, there may be organic renal disease or sympathetic renal hyperæmia leading to imperfect elimination. In cystitis caused by over-distension from long retention the kidneys simultaneously take on acute inflammation, which usually passes off when the bladder is emptied, but it may continue and give rise to all the constitutional symptoms of renal disease. Again, in chronic cystitis the thickening of the bladder-walls obstructs the ureters, so that the urine is dammed back upon the kidneys. This arrests their function, and in time leads to organic disease with all the consequent derangements of the nutritive and nervous systems. Secondly, absorption of the products of decomposed urine, or of pus and other septic materials the result of decomposing shreds of tissue, may take place.

Anæmia is another of the blood-changes which occur in chronic cystitis. In its origin and continuance it probably is much like anæmia due to long-continued inflammation elsewhere. The only peculiar symptom in this connection is the appearance of urohæmatin in the urine.

With this slow deterioration and poisoning of the blood various symptoms are developed. There is an effort made to eliminate urea by the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal. This is manifested by attacks of vomiting or diarrhoea. But when it does not come to these explosions, there is apt to be lack of appetite, especially at the morning meal, or there are perverted taste and constipation, interrupted by occasional attacks of diarrhoea. The skin in the chronic cases is at times sallow and clammy, and at times there is a distinct urinous odor about the body. Various more or less marked nervous symptoms are apt to be present. One set is characterized by the sluggishness of the patients, an inclination to sleep, despondent spirits, and occasionally dizziness and fainting. There can be little doubt that these and allied symptoms are referable to cerebral anæmia, for they are much aggravated by bromide of potassium, whilst digitalis and out-door life improves them. A second set of nervous symptoms are fairly attributable to blood-poisoning of one kind or another, and in the most severe cases are often promptly relieved by diarrhoea. Finally, a number of the irregular, wandering neuralgic pains and the headache are due to the general depression produced by bladder-pain and loss of sleep.

DIAGNOSIS.--Cystitis is easily made out, except in certain mild cases. {345} Similar symptoms, especially frequent urination, occur in prolapsus uteri, often in anteversion and in cases of pelvic adhesions and pregnancy and abdominal tumors, and lastly in certain neuroses. In most of these the recumbent position lessens the desire for frequent urination much more than when cystitis is present. Again, in the neurosis the attacks are irregular. Tenesmus is usually only present in cystitis, and lastly the examination of the urine and exploration of the parts should settle the question. We have spoken above of the method of differential diagnosis of blood coming from the bladder or the kidneys: the same method applies to localizing the source of pus. Urethritis with fissure at the neck of the bladder simulates cystitis in clinical history, and in the fact that pus in small quantity is found in the urine. To differentiate, the urine examined should be taken directly from the bladder with the catheter, when it will be found free from the products of inflammation. In addition to this, in some cases it will be necessary to make use of the endoscope, by which a good view can be obtained of the whole urethra and a portion of the mucous membrane of the bladder sufficient for diagnostic purposes.

TREATMENT.--The female bladder is so accessible, owing to the shortness of the urethra, that it is peculiarly amenable to local treatment. This is by no means, however, all that is required, for in all forms of cystitis, irrespective of the cause, the urine plays a very important part in keeping up the irritation. There are, therefore, always three indications to be met: (1) Removal of the cause; (2) constitutional treatment (diminishing the irritating character of the urine); (3) the cure of the local lesion.

(1) In many cases, of course, the cause is transient. The injury is done, and the inflammation resulting runs its course, longer or shorter according to the modifying influence of treatment. In a smaller number of cases, again, the cause is not removable, as in certain constitutional diseases or permanent pelvic adhesions, tumors, and the like. In such cases of course the treatment is but palliative, and, while relieving the immediate symptoms, aids the organs till a certain amount of toleration of the abnormal conditions is established. But in a large class of cases the cause, though more or less persistent, is removable. This includes the numerous cases of uterine displacement. Lastly, there is a certain number of uncomplicated cases which tend to recovery without treatment.

(2) The constitutional treatment should be first directed to reducing the amount of work the bladder has to do. For this purpose the bowels should be kept rather freely open, saline laxatives being the most valuable for this purpose. The skin too should be kept healthy and active. Next, the character of the urine should be as bland as possible. Food and drugs which are known to cause or keep up cystitis should be carefully avoided. Milk diet has proved successful in the hands of George Johnson. In all cases the diet should be carefully attended to, and should consist largely of fluid foods--milk, yolk of eggs, soups, etc. Lean meat in small amounts and easily-digested solids are allowable. Articles such as asparagus, alcohol, beer, and wine generally are to be avoided. Fruits, such as lemons and oranges, are usually grateful and at least harmless. The alkaline diluents, such as citrate of potassium or the alkaline mineral waters (Vichy), answer an admirable purpose. An infusion of buchu is an excellent agent, and may be combined with nearly {346} all other drugs employed in treating cystitis. Where pain is an urgent symptom in acute cases, it should be relieved by hot applications and by anodynes. Dover's powder is an excellent form in which to give opium. To relieve tenesmus vaginal suppositories of morphia, with or without belladonna, may be given. But in certain cases twenty-grain doses of potassium bromide every four hours relieve pain where opium fails. Benzoic acid or benzoate of ammonium in ten-grain doses in infusion of buchu, three times a day, is a most valuable remedy. The usual remedies, such as balsam of Peru or copaiba, oil of turpentine, etc., which are given in gonorrhoeal inflammation, are very useful in the chronic catarrhal forms of cystitis. To prevent or lessen the decomposition of the urine a vast number of remedies have been employed, all of the astringents and most of the antiseptics, but as a rule these remedies are much better administered locally than constitutionally. In various acute and transitory cases the constitutional remedies above described will be all that is necessary, but in the greater number local treatment is absolutely required.

(3) In local treatment the first point is not to do harm to the parts by the use of instruments. Dirty catheters and rough catheterization so often cause cystitis that it is easy to see that the same causes often perpetuate the mischief. Great care, then, should be used in selecting instruments for injecting. The ordinary metallic catheter with one or two large openings is much more liable to wound the sensitive mucous membrane than one with a number of small holes made either of hard or soft rubber. It should have a stopcock or something similar at the outer end, the better to regulate both the injections and the escape of the solution injected. In ordinary injections only about an ounce at a time should be in the bladder; this can be repeated four or five times, and the injection should be as slow as possible. To meet these indications I use a double perforated catheter made as follows: A small tube runs from one of the bifurcations to the extreme point. This is the supply-tube, and the catheter acts as the exhaust. The central tube can be removed for the purpose of cleaning the instrument. A piece of rubber tubing attaches the supply-tube to a fountain syringe, and this completes the whole apparatus. The calibre of the supply-tube being small and that of the exhaust large, a great quantity of fluid can pass through the bladder without distending it. The fingers can pinch the rubber tube and act as a stopcock to regulate the entrance and escape of the fluid used.

An injection of borax and water is often highly beneficial, and is alone sufficient in many cases. It should be frequently employed. It should always precede any topical application or medicated injection. Lukewarm water alone is employed, but the addition of a little salt (drachm j to pint j) or chlorate of potassium renders it more bland. Very often hot water is a most useful application. Of the medicated injections a vast number might be described, but they are referable to two classes, anodyne and astringent. The painful nature of cystitis suggests the use of opium preparations and chloral hydrate for injections, and they do give some relief. They should be well diluted to prevent their causing irritation.

Of the astringents, acetate of lead, sulphate of zinc, tannic acid, nitrate of silver are the most valuable. Many others--perchloride of iron, chlorate of potassium, hydrastis canadensis, salicylic acid and its preparations, carbolic acid, etc.--have been commended. In all cases the strength of {347} the injection should be short of causing the patient much pain. It is always best to begin with a mild solution and gradually feel the way up to stronger ones. Of all the astringents, I prefer nitrate of silver, which I use in strengths varying from one grain to twenty to the fluidounce. The general rule to be observed, if a strong solution is used, is to employ only a few drops; if a large injection is made, the solution should be weak.

Various antiseptics--iodoform, salicylate of sodium, etc.--have been used to prevent the decomposition which so complicates obstinate cystitis; but, as a rule, I think frequent washings out and astringent applications act much better. One of the most distressing obstacles encountered in making any such injections is where there is a tender or inflamed urethra. It is well then to carry the catheter only up to the sphincter of the bladder (as advised by Braxton Hicks), overcoming its resistance by the pressure of the injection. As a rule, the urethritis will not long survive the cystitis, but in some cases it exists as an independent affection; it is then usually gonorrhoeal, and should be treated as in the male. But when not, the same principles apply as in the local treatment of the bladder. Great care is needed, as the female urethra will only hold ten or fifteen drops at a time, and if a large injection is used it is almost sure to enter the bladder. To meet this difficulty I devised a reflux catheter for douching the urethra. It is grooved on the outside, and at the point there is an opening in each groove which lets a jet of the fluid used flow outward, bringing the injection in contact with all parts of the urethra.

In cases of ulceration, such as occur in bad cases of cystitis, applications should be made, if possible, to the part affected only. This can be accomplished by means of the endoscope when the ulceration is seated where it can be reached. Having located the point exactly by means of the endoscope, the inner or glass tube is withdrawn, and the application made directly to the required spot through the rubber tube. A glass pipette properly curved or any ordinary insufflator will answer perfectly, and when a solid is used a delicate long curved forceps will answer.

In chronic cases of cystitis in which all the above methods of treatment fail, it becomes necessary to give the parts complete rest by securing continuous drainage of the urine and products of inflammation. There are two ways of doing this--the one, to use a self-retaining catheter which may keep the bladder empty: this method answers very well when the inflammation is confined to the upper portions of the bladder, but when the neck of the bladder is involved the presence of the catheter gives rise to pain and irritation and cannot be tolerated. The other plan is to establish an artificial vesico-vaginal fistula, and keep it open for some months, until the bladder-walls have become normal again. This secures efficient rest to the inflamed parts; complete drainage is established, the patient wearing a cup, as she would a pessary, to catch the urine. If the inflammation is limited to the upper portion of the bladder, the drainage by the fistulous opening is all that is required; but if the neck of the organ is involved, frequent and continued medication will be required. This can be done by injecting through the urethra and letting the fluid escape through the opening in the bladder. This is not the place to discuss the steps of the operation or the indications when and how to close the artificial fistula. For these the reader is referred to works on this department of surgery.

{348} Suffice it to say, in conclusion, that this by no means easy operation should be only undertaken as a last resort, but that if properly done in well-selected cases it will cure where all other known methods of treatment have failed even to relieve.

Hypertrophy of the Bladder.

This lesion may be partial or total, involving any or all three coats of the viscus. But the term usually refers more particularly to increase of the muscular walls. As a rule, the hypertrophic changes are not confined to one portion of the viscus, all being more or less affected. The affection is much less frequent in the female than the male.

ETIOLOGY.--There are two varieties of this affection--one, concentric hypertrophy, in which the bladder is contracted as well as having its walls thickened; the other eccentric, in which there is dilatation. Its principal causes are--obstruction to the outflow of urine from stricture of the urethra, tumors, or foreign bodies; cystocele, preventing complete evacuation; cystitis, causing too frequent or too forcible contraction; and irritable bladder in certain of the neuroses. Accompanying such dilatation diverticulæ are sometimes formed, though rarely in the female.

SYMPTOMS.--There is sometimes present vesical spasm, some pain, and forcible ejection of urine. A certain amount of cystitis is almost always present, aggravating the original disorder. In the eccentric form there are sometimes superadded symptoms of over-distension.

DIAGNOSIS.--This is readily made by measuring the thickness of the bladder-wall between the finger in the vagina and the sound in the bladder. The capacity of the bladder is easily noted by measuring the urine passed at each micturition or by injecting a bland solution of salt and lukewarm water.

TREATMENT.--The treatment should be directed to the removal of the cause. When this is not possible, palliatives may be sought for in the use of the catheter, at regular intervals, to prevent over-distension. Cold baths, astringent injections, and electricity are often of use. By these means the evil results of the disease may be overcome, but the hypertrophy is usually permanent.

Atrophy.

Atrophy of the bladder is a rare disease in early life. In women, in addition to the ordinary decay of age, there is a special predisposition to degenerative changes in the pelvic viscera, the bladder-walls included, after the menopause. Extreme distension of the bladder is usually the exciting cause, giving rise to temporary or even permanent paralysis, and eventually causing either inflammation or atrophy and fatty degeneration. Interrupted nutrition, due to impaired circulation, is the immediate cause, but such altered nutrition may be purely nervous and due to atrophy of certain ganglion-cells in the spinal cord.

SYMPTOMS AND DIAGNOSIS.--Patients complain of difficulty in emptying their bladders, the urine coming away in interrupted jets. They are {349} apt to be irregular in their times of urinating, and are liable in consequence at times to have retention and over-distension. Pain and sometimes a slight cystitis are present. Finally, they completely lose the power of urinating and a catheter has to be used. The diagnosis is to be made as in hypertrophy, by a finger in the vagina and a sound in the bladder.

TREATMENT.--Regular catheterization, strychnia in full doses, electricity, and tonics, combined with washing out the viscus. Where the atrophy is due to nerve-degeneration these measures are purely palliative, in other cases they are of more avail.

FUNCTIONAL DISEASES OF THE BLADDER.

Under the name of functional diseases of the bladder are included a large number of varied affections of which the pathology is as yet very obscure. Where there are marked symptoms of vesical disorder, while no organic lesions are found in the tissues of the bladder, the affections must be classed under the name of functional derangements. As our knowledge increases the number of these is constantly diminished, and a still further and more rapid diminution will occur as the physiology and pathology of the nervous system innervating this viscus become better known. These diseases are much more common in children and women than in men--in children, because the controlling power of habit is only in process of formation; and in women, mainly because of the more complex organization of the genito-urinary organs, which are the more easily exhausted and deranged, especially by the functions of maternity. True, neuralgia of the bladder has been described under a variety of names, irritable bladder, cysto-spasm, etc., but it is rather a rare affection. The most prominent symptom is the painful micturition, and attendant on this a desire to pass water too frequently.

There is no particular change in the character of the urine, and no appreciable visible alteration in the appearance of the parts, though they are more sensitive than normal to the touch. This condition is best met by warm fomentations locally and sedatives either locally or generally, while nutrition is improved by appropriate tonics, nervines, and by the use of the galvanic current.

A much more common class of affections of the bladder accompany hysteria, sometimes grouped under the name of hysterical bladder. A great number of pathological conditions are grouped under this vague term, but they are held together by all having, as a more or less prominent symptom, varying degrees of incoördination. The disturbing effect of strong sudden emotion, as fear, upon the bladder is familiar to all, and in various organic diseases of the spinal cord and brain, such as myelitis and locomotor ataxia, a disturbance in the functional action of the bladder is among the first symptoms. It then becomes a matter of great difficulty, and yet of great importance, to make a differential diagnosis.

In hysteria the urine usually diminishes in specific gravity; it is apt to be increased in quantity, and, though clear in appearance, is irritating {350} to the mucous membrane. In such cases frequent urination, sometimes almost continuous, sets in; but it is an important point that during sleep the patient retains her urine the normal time. In others we get, on the contrary, retention, and this may be due to various causes. In some it is doubtless involuntary, as they say they cannot urinate, but in others it is assuredly will not. Many of these latter derive a morbid pleasure from catheterization. These are the patients who are given to the introduction of hair-pins, slate pencils, etc. etc. into the urethra.

Some authors claim that in the intense sexual excitement of hysteria the chronic erection of the clitoris makes pressure on the urethra, and so prevents the escape of urine, but this seems somewhat apocryphal.

Another class of cases resembling the hysterical in the frequency of urination are those addicted to masturbation; these are, fortunately, not very common.

In all of these cases the frequency and irregularity of urination is a much more prominent symptom than the pain. This latter is usually a slight scalding from the urine passing over the chafed and irritable urethra, especially at the meatus. (These symptoms sometimes occur in the miasmatic affections.) A number of neuroses of the bladder are reflex and dependent on peripheral irritation elsewhere. A typical example of this class of affections is what has been described under the title of ovarian irritation. In this condition there is very much heightened reflex irritability accompanying the increased tenderness and vascular engorgement of the affected ovary. It is difficult to explain the bladder symptoms which sometimes accompany the recurring crises of this disease, except as due to a nervous excitation spreading from the ovarian centres in the spinal cord to the adjacent bladder centres.

The diagnosis of this group of affections must be made by exclusion. We have some of the same symptoms--increased frequency of micturition, pain during and after the evacuation, tenesmus and shooting pains in the pelvis--as in organic disease. The most important guide is a careful examination of the urine, which shows the absence of abnormal constituents, thereby excluding organic disease. This diagnosis will be much strengthened by a digital examination, by the vagina, of the neck of the bladder, and the passage of a urethral sound, neither causing pain, as they would do in cystitis.

The PROGNOSIS is usually good, but it depends upon the length of time the affection has lasted.

The TREATMENT is mainly tonic and nutritive. The diet should be nutritious and simple, and the bowels regulated by mild purgatives. Constitutionally, small doses of strychnine are most valuable in improving the nerve tone; so also the constant electric current is of service. Locally, sedative suppositories in the vagina or enemata are advantageous, conium combined with belladonna or hyoscyamus seeming to act best. The liberal use of the bromides gives good results in some hysterical cases.

Paralysis of the Bladder.