Gynäkologie nach Carus

The manuscript has the original pagination pp.1-87 and there is an index in the rear. A number of Latin subject headings given throughout the text show some of, but not all of, the subjects covered to be as follows: menstrualis nimia [menorrhagia], menses suppressi & obstructi [amenorrhoea], chlorosis [anaemia, hypochromic], nymphomania, andromania, furor uterinus [female hysteria], sterilitas [infertility], passio hysteria, adscensus uteri [hysteria], metritis [pelvic inflammatory disease], haemorrhagia uteri [uterine haemorrhage], metrorrhagia, fluor albus [leukorrhoea], leucorrhoea, hydrometra, emphysema uteri, physometra, polypus sub uterus, intumescentia et induratio uteri, scirrhus et carcinoma uteri, prolapsus, descensus uteri [uterine prolapse], antroversio uteri, inversio uteri, prolapsus vaginae, colpocele [vaginal hernia], elytrocele hernia vaginalis, hernia perinaei [perineal hernia], oophoritis, hydrops ovarii [ovarian dropsy].

When part of the Manchester Medical Society's Library the manuscript was allocated the reference D 963 viz. their 1890 catalogue.

Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) was born in Leipzig on 3 January 1789 and was a noted physiologist and painter. He first began studying natural sciences at the University of Leipzig in 1804 before switching to medicine. In 1811 he obtained his doctorate following the submission of the thesis De Utheri Rheumatismo and qualified to lecture in comparative anatomy the same year.

For a number of years he worked as a general medical practitioner prior to being appointed to the post of professor of gynaecology at the Academy of Surgical Medicine in 1814 and director of the Dresden maternity hospital in 1827. Another notable role he held was that of royal personal physician, in which capacity he took an informal tour of Britain in 1844.

He published widely in medicine, physiology, comparative anatomy, the natural sciences, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and art but he is most remembered for the concept of the vertebrate archetype as well as his thoughts on the psyche. He died in Dresden on 28 July 1869.