RefNo | AP/28/13 |
Level | Item |
Title | Unpublished paper, 'Further research on the nervous system of the uterus' by Robert Lee |
Date | February 1846 |
Description | Lee expands upon research previously published in Philosophical Transactions (see AP/25/19). He explains that in 1838 he discovered, in dissecting a gravid uterus, structures which had a striking resemblance to ganglionic plexuses of nerves. The following year, in another gravid uterus, he traced the sympathetic and spinal nerves into these new structures. He requested several distinguished anatomists to examine these dissections, and to compare them with similar dissections of the unimpregnated uterus, which he had made in the course of the same year. He then quotes, at some length, the opinions given by these several referees after their examination; and which appear, for the most part, to be favourable to the views of the author, namely, that the structures in question are not mere fibrous tissues, but that they possess the character of nerves, and that they augment in size with the enlargement of the uterus during pregnancy. Among those to whom the preparations were submitted for examination, however, two suggested that the filaments regarded by the author as nerves, are bands of elastic tissue only, and not plexuses of nerves. Lee goes on to give the history of his subsequent researches on the same subject, which he extended to the corresponding parts in some of the larger quadrupeds; and from all these he obtained accumulated evidence of the truth of his original opinions. Later observations and dissections have served only to confirm him in his opinions; and he considers them as establishing the fact that the nerves of the uterus are considerably enlarged during the gravid state of that organ. Annotations in ink throughout.
Subject: Anatomy / Physiology / Reproduction
Received 26 February 1846. Communicated by Benjamin Collins Brodie.
An abstract of the paper was published in volume 5 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'Further researches on the nervous system of the uterus'. |
Extent | 23p |
Format | Manuscript |
PhysicalDescription | Ink on paper |
Digital images | View item on Science in the Making |
AccessStatus | Open |
RelatedMaterial | DOI: 10.1098/rspl.1843.0084 |
RelatedRecord | AP/25/19 |
AP/29/10 |
AP/30/11 |
Fellows associated with this archive
Code | PersonName | Dates |
NA7572 | Lee; Robert (1793 - 1877) | 1793 - 1877 |
NA8147 | Brodie; Sir; Benjamin Collins (1783 - 1862); surgeon | 1783 - 1862 |