Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine — John Shaqi
Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
Guillemeau, the surgeon of the French king, tells of a girl of
eighteen, who was brought before the French officials in Paris, in
1607, on the citation of her husband of her inability to allow him
completion of the marital function. He alleged that he had made several
unsuccessful attempts to enter her, and in doing so had caused
paraphimosis. On examination by the surgeons she was found to have a
dense membrane, of a fibrous nature, entirely occluding the vagina,
which they incised. Immediately afterward the woman exhibited morning
sickness and the usual signs of pregnancy, and was delivered in four
months of a full-term child, the results of an impregnation occasioned
by one of the unsuccessful attempts at entrance. Such instances are
numerous in the older literature, and a mere citation of a few is
considered sufficient here. Zacchias, Amand, Fabricius Hildanus, Graaf,
the discoverer of the follicles that bear his name, Borellus, Blegny,
Blanchard, Diemerbroeck, Duddell, Mauriceau, a Reyes, Riolan, Harvey,
the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, Wolfius, Walther,
Rongier, Ruysch, Forestus, Ephemerides, and Schurig all mention cases
of conception with intact hymen, and in which there was no entrance of
the penis. Tolberg has an example of hymen integrum after the birth of
a fetus five months old, and there is recorded a case of tubal
pregnancy in which the hymen was intact.
Gilbert gives an account of a case of pregnancy in an unmarried woman,
who successfully resisted an attempt at criminal connection and yet
became impregnated and gave birth to a perfectly formed female child.
The hymen was not ruptured, and the impregnation could not have
preceded the birth more than thirty-six weeks. Unfortunately, this poor
woman was infected with gonorrhea after the attempted assault. Simmons
of St. Louis gives a curious peculiarity of conception, in which there
was complete closure of the vagina, subsequent conception, and delivery
at term. He made the patient's acquaintance from her application to him
in regard to a malcondition of her sexual apparatus, causing much
domestic infelicity.
Lawson speaks of a woman of thirty-five, who had been married ten
months, and whose husband could never effect an entrance; yet she
became pregnant and had a normal labor, despite the fact that, in
addition to a tough and unruptured hymen, she had an occluding vaginal
cyst. Hickinbotham of Birmingham reports the history of two cases of
labor at term in females whose hymens were immensely thickened. H. Grey
Edwards has seen a case of imperforate hymen which had to be torn
through in labor; yet one single act of copulation, even with this
obstacle to entrance, sufficed to impregnate. Champion speaks of a
woman who became pregnant although her hymen was intact. She had been
in the habit of having coitus by the urethra, and all through her
pregnancy continued this practice.
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