ONABIES are organs peculiar to the feniale,•and are analogous to the testes in the male. They are two oblong flattened bodies (about an inch and a half in length. three quarters of an inch in width, and nearly half an inch thick in the human h1.11ACCO, c-.1 u ated on either side id die uterus, to which they are connected by ligaments arid by the Fallopian tube. On making sections of an ovary, 1111121C1'011S vesicles are seen, These are the ovicics of the future ova or germs, roll are termed Ilse Gr,(Vian Before hnpregnation they vary in number from 10 to 20, and from the size of a pin's head to that of it pea; but microscopic examination reveals the presence of young resides in large numbers. At each monthly period a ripe Graafian vesicle bursts, and the ovum contained in it makes its way by ciliary motion along the Fallopian tube to the uterus, where, if it is not impregnated, it is disintegrated and absorbed.
Solid tumors or cysts. containing hair and teeth, are in these organs. hat their principal disease is that to which the name of ovurian tumor is applied. This honor nuly described as consisting of an en:argement of one or aura of rho Grnatian ves'cles into a mass which may weigh 80 or 100 ths., or even more; :led it nmy be t•ither simple (that is to say, composed of natural structures much hypertrophied) or cancerous. Thy walls of the cysts (or enlarged Graafian resides) may be thin and flexi ble, or ihielt and cartilaginous: and the fluid they contain may be dear end limpid, or thick nail ropy, or grunions and opaque. The only disease with which it can be con foantled is ordinary abdominal dropsy, or aseites, and- when its nature is dearly de teno:ival, thr e modes of treatment are open for adoption : these are (1) (2) various surgie:II and medical means of producing atrophy of the tumor, and (3) extirpa Go• of the organ, ar ovario'otny.
1. Tiippinu: is Ibc simplest mode of relieving the patient; but the cyst soon refills, and mast lie often repeated. "Cases are extant, in one of which the patient
lived to he tapped 00 times at intervals of about a month. and in another, 128 times at intervals of six bat. Ii l“an as a general rule, it may be affirmed that few patients survive more than Emir years after the first tapping, a. period passed in the greatest misery 5111arit:g_"—Imita's Scage,»:'$ p. 408.
2. Under this head :111' included both numerous operations for causing the tumor to waste, and its internal walls to :Where, and the interim] administration of absorbent with the view of produchT etrophy and absorption of the tumor. The injec tion of tinett.re of iodine into the previously emptied cyst, is sometimes followed with good re.oilts. as in the case of hydrocele (pv).
3. Ove•iotomy, or total extirpation of the morbid mass, is an operation regarding which there has of late years been much discussion. Its opponents urge (1) ihe difficulty of diagnosis; ('2) the frequency of adhesion of the tumor to adjacent parts—a point which can often not be ascertained till the abdomen has been opened; and (3) the great r ortality follows it : while in favor of the operation it is urged (1) that the mortality is not • 'ter t h to from some oilier surgical operatioos which are regarded as justifiable: (2) 1:.a: no other plan of treatment can effect a radical cure; (3) that if the surgeon, in order to complete his diagnosis, first makes a small incision to enable him to ascertain the existence of adhesions, and closes it again with suture, if he finds this to be the case, no great hartu'is likely to result; and (4) that consideringThe miserable lives these patients lead during a course of tapping, etc., it is the most merciful course to adopt in patients who are young and otherwise healthy. For a description of the mode of performing the operation, and of the cautions to be observed, we may refer to a series of papers on by Mr. Spencer Wells in The Medical Times and Gazette for 1858 and 1859.