第5章

D'Andrade cites an account of a healthy Parsee lady, eighteen years of age, who menstruated regularly from thirteen to fifteen and a half years; the catamenia then became irregular and she suffered occasional hemorrhages from the gums and nose, together with attacks of hematemesis. The menstruation returned, but she never became pregnant, and, later, blood issued from the healthy skin of the left breast and right forearm, recurring every month or two, and finally additional dermal hemorrhage developed on the forehead. Microscopic examination of the exuded blood showed usual constituents present. There are two somewhat similar cases spoken of in French literature. The first was that of a young lady, who, after ten years' suppression of the menstrual discharge, exhibited the flow from a vesicular eruption on the finger. The other case was quite peculiar, the woman being a prostitute, who menstruated from time to time through spots, the size of a five-franc piece, developing on the breasts, buttocks, back, axilla, and epigastrium. Barham records a case similar to the foregoing, in which the menstruation assumed the character of periodic purpura. Duchesne mentions an instance of complete amenorrhea, in which the ordinary flow was replaced by periodic sweats.

Parrot speaks of a woman who, when seven months old, suffered from strumous ulcers, which left cicatrices on the right hand, from whence, at the age of six years, issued a sanguineous discharge with associate convulsions. One day, while in violent grief, she shed bloody tears. She menstruated at the age of eleven, and was temporarily improved in her condition; but after any strong emotion the hemorrhages returned. The subsidence of the bleeding followed her first pregnancy, but subsequently on one occasion, when the menses were a few days in arrears, she exhibited a blood-like exudation from the forehead, eyelids, and scalp. As in the case under D'Andrade's observation, the exudation was found by microscopic examination to consist of the true constituents of blood. An additional element of complication in this case was the occurrence of occasional attacks of hematemesis.

Menstruation from the Breasts.--Being in close sympathy with the generative function, we would naturally expect to find the female mammae involved in cases of anomalous menstruation, and the truth of this supposition is substantiated in the abundance of such cases on record. Schenck reports instances of menstruation from the nipple; and Richter, de Fontechia, Laurentius, Marcellus Donatus, Amatus Lusitanus, and Bierling are some of the older writers who have observed this anomaly. Pare says the wife of Pierre de Feure, an iron merchant, living at Chasteaudun, menstruated such quantities from the breasts each month that several serviettes were necessary to receive the discharge.