from my own case-book only those select cases which bear forcibly on the subject, borrowing from authors and contemporary observers, facts, rendered much more valuable by their not having been collected under the influence of the views which they will be found so admirably to exemplify. If I have derived my cases more from foreign than from British practitioners, it is simply because Continental obstetricians, having been the first to investigate scrupulously the diseased organs of generation by the combined assistance of the touch and of the eye, have been able, in many instances, to detect the hidden causes of those diseases which, until late years, were only guessed at, and could only be treated symptomatically. As a fitting introduction to this work, I intended to prefix an essay on the natural history of women; but finding the matter to grow rapidly under my hands, and the vast importance of the undertaking becoming every day more perceptible, I have, for a time, desisted from the accomplishment of what must be considered the only rational introduction to any treatise on the diseases of women. In noticing the many deficiencies of this work, the reader will also remember that it is the first systematic attempt to do, for the principal organs of generation in women, what has now been done for every other important organ of the body; and that, considering the rapid progress which has lately been made in ovarian physiology, it cannot be wrong if some one should seek to give to the pathology of the ovaries a development which would be greater and more satisfactory if the labourer were better able to accomplish his self-imposed task. I cannot record the progress of ovarian physiology without testifying my admiration for the illustrious Regnerus de Graaf, who, nearly two centuries since, originated a movement which has only been followed up within the last few years. Can I better conclude this address than by borrow ing the words in which he ends the preface to his immortal work? "Vale itaque amice Lector, atque conatus meos non sine labore et sumptu adornatus, tibique gratis oblatos, candido et benevolo (quo illos conscripsimus) animo, castoque pervolve." EDWARD JOHN TILT. March 25th, 1850. The ovaria are the principal organs of menstruation Relative importance of the ovaries and of the womb proved by cases 57 Frequency of pseudo-narcotism at each successive phasis of repro- Insanity often produced by perverted visceral action SPINAL SYMPTOMS OF MENSTRUATION Nerves which supply the ovario-uterine organs |