The married or single status does not seem to have any effect in predisposing to these tumors. We do not know what physiological or pathological states of the uterus or other organs predispose to them. There is probably no tumor in the body strictly analogous in structure, mode of origin, supply, or development to the fibroid tumor of the uterus. There is no other organ in the body that undergoes analogous normal trophic changes. The vast multiplication of tissue that takes place in the uterus during gestation, and the more rapid but equally great changes toward degeneration or atrophy, would naturally suggest pathological possibilities of a peculiar nature. The rhythmical changes of menstruation are like no other functional condition. They too involve the processes of hypertrophy and atrophy. When the menstrual and generative changes are normal every part of the body of the uterus is simultaneously and proportionately hypertrophied and atrophied. Local derangements of these processes of hypertrophy and degeneration must sometimes occur, probably from defective or excessive innervation of loculi in the fibrous structure. Congestion or hyperæmia may thus result, and consequently very great influence be exerted upon the nutrition of the parts concerned after the deposit has begun; its presence increases the hyperæmia and thus perpetuates its growth indefinitely. CLINICAL HISTORY.--Probably the earliest, most frequent, and constant symptoms connected with fibrous tumors of the uterus are hemorrhage and leucorrhoea. They are both the result of active or arterial hyperæmia, and doubtless come from the endometrium. Polypi, submucous, and intramural tumors are more likely to give rise to these two symptoms. The nearer the mucous membrane, and the greater that membrane is expanded, the greater the amount of hemorrhage and leucorrhoea, and, as a counter-fact, the nearer the serous membrane, the less the amount of these two discharges. While this statement in reference to the effects of the proximity of the tumor to the two membranes is usually true, it is not always so. Hemorrhage is sometimes not very great, but at others it is appalling, and constitutes an imperative reason for the employment of desperate remedies. The hemorrhage is usually first noticed in connection with the menstrual flow, and it may even be confined to the periods: sometimes it extends over the whole of the interval. The leucorrhoea is generally constant, and sometimes thin and watery, especially after the hemorrhagic paroxysm has subsided, and at others it is constituted {251} mainly of mucus with the débris of the mucous membrane and blood-corpuscles.