Anteflexion of the Uterus as a normal condition prior to Pregnancy.
By M. Boulard.—A few years since, a very animated discussion took
place at the Acadenlie de Medecine, upon the subject of engorgement of
the uterus. M. Velpeau was one of those who maintained that anteflex-
ions of the uterus are often mistaken for engorgements, while other
speakers declared anteflexion itself to be a very rare occurrence. M.
Boulard, engaged in searching for examples of the deviation for Velpeau,
was at once struck by the frequency of its occurrence in young subjects,
while in older ones he scarcely ever met with a case, without, from the
examination of the other organs, ascertaining that the subject of it had
never been pregnant. After in this way collecting a great number of
uteri from the dead-house, M. Boulard resolved to study the point dur-
ing the development of the organ, and found that the uterus is almost
always anteflexed in the foetus. He has continued to pursue the investi-
gation from that period; and the present paper is founded upon the ex-
amination of 27 adult female subjects who had never borne children, 19
young girls from two to thirteen, and 57 full-timed foetuses. In 98 of
these anteflexion has been found, and to such a point is the body bent
upon the neck, that it is not possible to prevent its regaining the same
position immediately after the attempt at replacing it has been made.
Since these observations have been made, the author has sought every
opportunity of verifying them in the living subject; but he has only had
ten opportunities of examining the position of the uterus in the virgin,
and in all of these the anteflexion existed.
M. Boulard accounts for this disposition having been overlooked by
anatomists, by the fact that the bodies of women who have borne one or
more children are those which are usually brought for dissection; and
the organ is examined only after it has undergone this physiological
change, or under the influence of the relaxed state of the tissues after
death. When anteflexion has been noted, it has been considered as an
abnormal and diseased condition, and regarded as a cause of suffering
which was due really to some morbid condition which had become
accidentally associated with it.—Brit, and For. Med. Chir Rev. from
Rev. Med. Chir., xiii. 341.