子宮内膜症は300年前から知られていた　

1999/6/28　ロイター　子宮内膜症は現代病と考えられているが、ニューヨークの歴史家によると、300年前からヨーロッパの医師により詳しく記載されていたという。

Endometriosis described 300 years ago

NEW YORK, Jun 28 (Reuters Health) -- Far from being a new ailment possibly caused by a modern lifestyle, endometriosis was described by European doctors more than 300 years ago, according to a New York state historian.
Physicians writing in England, Scotland, Germany, and Holland described the symptoms and pathology of endometriosis in detail, and knew that it only affected women and that it frequently began around the time of first menstruation, reports Dr. Vincent J. Knapp of the State University of New York, Potsdam, in the July issue of Fertility and Sterility.
In endometriosis, fragments of the uterine lining escape from the uterus and cause adhesions and bleeding in other parts of the body, including the ovaries and bowel, and occasionally more distant sites such as the lung, eye, and brain.
Endometriosis is ``generally considered to be... the product of modern, even 20th century, industrial development,'' according to Knapp, a historian, who analyzed primary texts from the National Library of Medicine. ``Nothing could be further from the truth; there is evidence that endometriosis existed in Europe at least 300 years ago.''
In a book published in 1690, a German physician Daniel Shroen described a female disorder in which ulcers appeared in the abdominal, the bladder, intestines and outside the uterus and cervix, causing adhesions.
Shroen described the condition as coinciding with puberty, and this report was followed by 11 other studies that described the condition in the 18th century.
``All of them suggest that this was a relatively familiar disease because none of the investigators proclaimed that their work was original in any way,'' according to the report.
In 1769, Arthur Duff, a Scot, described inflammation of the uterine area as ``a long-standing and well-known pathological disorder,'' and in 1779 English physician Philibertus Hoctin wrote that the disease had been acknowledged by ``ancient authors as well as recent investigators.''
Arguing against contemporaries who believed that all women were given to hysteria, several 18th century physicians pointed out that the severe pain of endometriosis was likely responsible.
``Hysteria is not an idiosyncrasy that we can attribute to the female portion of the population, it is obviously a major symptom of this deeply-rooted disease,'' Dutch physician Antonius Ludgers wrote in 1776.
In 1774, Louis Brotherson of Scotland described the condition as follows: ``In its worst stages, this disease affects the well-being of the female patient totally and adversely, her whole spirit is broken, and yet she lives in fear of still more symptoms such as further pain.''
``(A) perceptive 18th century medical profession must be credited, on those occasions when it did turn to the study of endometriosis, with recognizing most of its physiologic and pathologic manifestations,'' Knapp concludes.
SOURCE: Fertility and Sterility 1999;72:10-14.