ENORMOUS OVARIAN CYSTS; A THEORY OF HEART FAILURE IN, AND A PLEA FOR A DOUBLE OPERATION FOR, THEIR REMOVAL; WITH A BRIEF HISTORY OF FOUR CASES.*

BY GEORGE. E. ABBOTT, M.D., SAN DIEGO, CAL.

Mr. President, Mr. Chairman and Fellows:

At a late day I wrote to our chairman that I had been disappointed in the preparation of my paper and must be absent at "roll call;" or if the society would accept a paper that I had formerly read in New York, I would gladly go up to take my part with others.

Our chairman has been unwise enough to be courteous to me rather than to you, but I hope some of the fellows present may add an interesting discussion, and that you may after all be paid for the few moments spent in considering the question of the subject.

The two main points of this paper are: First. An argument that heart failure is due, not so much to the sudden removal of pericardial pressure, as to the sudden reduction in the endocardial tension. Second. A plea to remove the fluid in a primary and the sac in a secondary operation, in cases of enormous ovarian cysts.

Read before the Twentieth Semi-Annual Meeting of the Southern California Medical Society, held in Los Angeles, Dec. 1 and 3, 1897.