Book 2
11
Ulcers, too, are formed in the womb; some broad and attended with tingling, which, being close together, are, as it were, a superficial excoriation; pus thick, without smell, scanty. These ulcers are mild. But there are others deeper and worse than these, in which the pains are slight, pus somewhat more abundant, much more fetid, and yet, notwithstanding, these also are mild. But if they become deeper, and the lips of the sores hard or rough, if there is a fetid ichor, and pain stronger than in the former case, the ulcer corrodes the uterus; but sometimes a small piece of flesh is cast off and discharged, and this sore not coming to cicatrization, either proves fatal after a long time, or becomes very chronic. This sore gets the appellation of phagedæna. The sores also are dangerous if in these cases the pain gets exacerbated, and the woman becomes uneasy. From the sore there is discharged a putrid matter, intolerable even to themselves; it is exasperated by touching and by medicines, and irritated by almost any mode of treatment. The veins in the uterus are swelled up with distension of the surrounding parts. To the skilled, it is not difficult to recognise by the touch, for it is not otherwise obvious. Febrile heat, general restlessness, and hardness is present, as in malignant diseases; the ulcers, being of a fatal nature, obtain also the appellation of cancers. Another cancer: no ulceration anywhere, swelling hard and untractable, which distends the whole uterus; but there are pains also in the other parts which it drags to it. Both these carcinomatous sores are chronic and deadly; but the ulcerated is worse than the unulcerated, both in smell and pains, in life and in death.
