Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/63

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HISTORY OF GYNECOLOGY IN AMERICA liii

gynecological teaching, taking a woman into the amphitheatre and using the speculum, an innovation and a bold procedure which naturally led to a great public outcry. ("Gross' Autobiography," vol. ii.)

Suspension of the Kidney. — The name of George M. Edebohls will ever be associated with suspension of the kidney ("Movable Kidney," etc., "American Journal of Medical Sciences," 1893); another field in which he also holds indisputable claims to originality and priority is the operation by decapsulation of the kidney in inflammatory affections. "The Cure of Chronic Brights' Disease by Operation." ("Medical Record," New York,1901, lx.)

In 1880, A. J. C. Skene described the important para-urethral glands commonly known as Skene's glands, lodging places for a latent gonorrheal infection. I do not know of any other anatomic discovery of note made by a gynecologist. ("American Journal of Obstetrics," vol. xiii, 1880.) Skene was also a pioneer in his treatise on " Diseases of the Bladder and Urethra in Women," New York, 1878.

The more purely scientific and analytic side of gynecology as repre- sented by careful, well-digested, microscopic and anatomic studies, has unfortunately found but few representatives in this country. Among these few investigators we must mention Thomas S. Cullen, who has published a remarkable monograph on "Cancer of the Uterus," New York, 1900; he has also discovered the true source of adeno-myomata in the Muellerian organ and written a monograph upon this important disease, " Adenomyoma." To him we also owe the fullest investigation yet made of fibroid tumors, see "Myomata of the Uterus," Kelly and Cullen, Philadelphia, 1909. Other articles by Cullen are a "Study of Hydrosalpinx, its Surgical and Pathological Aspects, with a Report of Twenty-seven Cases." ("Johns Hopkins Hospital Report," 1894-5, iv, Nos. 7-8); also "Tuberculosis of the Endometrium," etc.

The works of J. Whitridge Williams are also models of scientific investigation, such as his "Contributions to the Histogenesis of the Papillary Cystomata of the Ovary" ("Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin," vol. ii, 1891), and "So-called Caseous Tumors of the Ovary" (Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, vol. hi, 1892), and "Tuberculosis of the Female Generative Organs" ("Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports, vol. iii, 1892).

I append here a list of some important papers dealing with the history of gynecology, valuable repositories of data for the investigator; they are chronologically:

Storer (H. R.), "An Outline History of an American Gynecology." ("Journal Gynecological Society," Boston, 1869, i.)

Fitch, Simon, "Peculiarities of the Operations of Three Great Ovari-