It has been, and is still, the custom to regard the condition of the ovaries as termed cirrhotic and sclerocystic degeneration as merely a sequence of an acute ovaritis. No pathologist, so far as I have been able to learn, has attempted to separate these primary degenerations from those occurring secondarily to inflammation.
ETIOLOGY.
The etiologic factor is unknown. In speaking of arterioclerosis, Osler says that the tendency to this affection, which shows in entire families, can be explained in no other way than that "in the makeup of the machine bad material was used in the tubing." And it does seem that in these cases the connective tissue elements throughout the economy are of "bad material." The same authority recognizes an independent primary cirrhosis of the kidney.A cirrhotic ovary is smaller than the normal: is hard and inelastic, and usually deeply corrugated. A sclerocystic ovary, however, is two