If a woman die from hemorrhage, or from any other cause in child-birth, the appearances that will present themselves on dissection have been thus clearly described by _Professor Burns_.[39] “The uterus is found like a large flattened pouch, from nine to twelve inches long; the cavity contains coagula, or a bloody fluid, and its surface is covered by the remains of the decidua. Often the marks of the attachment of the _placenta_ are very visible. This part is of a dark colour; so that the uterus is thought to be gangrenous by those who are not aware of the circumstance. The surface being cleaned, the sound substance of the womb is seen; the vessels are extremely large and numerous; the fallopian tubes, round ligaments, and surface of the ovaria, are so vascular that they have a purple colour. The spot where the ovum escaped is more vascular than the rest of the ovarian surface. This state of the uterine appendages continues until the womb has returned to its unimpregnated state. A week after delivery, the womb is as large as two fists; at the end of a fortnight, it will be found about six inches long, generally lying obliquely to one side; the inner surface is still bloody, and covered partially with a pulpy substance like decidua. The muscularity is distinct, and the orbicular direction of the fibres round the orifice of the tubes very evident. The substance is whitish. The intestines have not yet assumed the same order as usual; but the distended cæcum is often more prominent than the rest. It is a month, at least, before the uterus returns to its natural state, but the os uteri rarely, if ever, closes to the same degree as in the virgin state.”
The ovaria are susceptible of very considerable enlargement by diseases, so as to occasion the appearance of pregnancy, the most common of which is dropsy; in some cases the whole substance is converted into a capsule containing fluid, so large as to occupy nearly the whole cavity of the abdomen. There is one phenomenon, connected with the morbid anatomy of these organs, that deserves particular notice in this work, as being a subject in some degree connected with judicial enquiry—the change of these parts into a fatty substance containing hair and teeth! these appearances have been often regarded as imperfect ova, in consequence of impregnation, but it should be generally known that they take place without any intercourse between the sexes, and appear to depend upon causes very remote from those to which we allude.[40] In our examination of the ovaria, it is essential to remark whether any _corpus luteum_ be present; and upon this subject and the value of its indications, it will be necessary to offer a few remarks. The _corpora lutea_ are oblong glandular bodies, found in the ovaria of pregnant animals; they have been regarded as the _calyces_, from which the impregnated ovum has dropped;[41] they are largest and most conspicuous in the early state of pregnancy, and remain for some time after delivery, when they gradually fade and wither until they disappear. The phenomenon has been eagerly seized by the juridical physician as furnishing an indication of pregnancy; and, to a certain degree, the test may be admitted; but cases have occurred in which a _corpus luteum_ has been found, where impregnation could not have occurred;[42] it is probable that upon certain occasions extreme salacity may disengage an ovum, and thus produce the _corpus luteum_, although the former without sexual intercourse can never be developed in the uterus; but this is an exception to the general law of Nature, and the _corpus luteum_ may still be regarded as a presumptive proof of pregnancy. _Mr. Stanley_, in a very excellent memoir, published in the _Medical Transactions of the College_, _vol._ vi, observes that “the _corpora lutea_ in the ovaries of virgins may, in general, be distinguished from those which are the consequence of impregnation, by their smaller size.”