The year 2010 marked the sesquicentennial of the discovery and description of adenomyosis and endometriosis by Carl Rokitansky of Vienna. The intervening 150 years have seen intense basic scientific and clinical research, and the diagnosis and treatment of millions of women worldwide. Yet there has been no scholarly history, and little mention of endometriosis and adenomyosis in historical compendiums of disease.

Endometriosis must be understood as the dominant member of five closely related benign müllerian diseases: endometriosis, adenomyosis, endosalpingiosis, endocervicosis, and müllerianosis, and its history is intertwined within the tale of discovery of each of these diseases and their interrelatedness by a series of pioneering physicians. Possibly because endometriosis is an enigmatic disease best understood through increasingly sophisticated and reductionistic scientific research, historians of science and medicine have consequently not been forthcoming.

Faced with such a daunting task, A History of Endometriosis provides a stunning chronological and biographical history of endometriosis with a intellectual leitmotif to frame the history of these chronic diseases. A history of ideas has enabled the author to follow the intellectual development of physician-investigators as they identified and described endometriotic diseases and theories of pathogenesis as well as to trace their influence on one another, all revealed by a patient reading of primary and secondary sources.

Zusammenfassung
The early history of endometriosis is interwoven with the history of adenomyosis, since it was not until the mid nineteen-twenties that the two conditions were finally separated. A History of Endometriosis provides a detailed reconstruction of the progress made in identifying, describing and treating the condition we call today endometriosis.

Inhalt

Dedication.- Forward.- Preface.- Acknowledgments.- Table of contents.- Introduction.- 1. Prelude Goethe, Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, and Johannes Müller.- 2. Intellectual Development of Carl von Rokitansky.- 3. Microscopy and the Discovery of Endometriosis and Adenomyosis
4. From von Rokitansky to von Recklinghausen to Cullen.- 5. cullen's research at johns hopkins hospital.- 6. Adenomyomas of vagina, rectum, sigmoid colon and ovary.- 7. Distribution of pelvic and abdominal adenomyomas.- 8. Sampson's theory of implantation endometriosis.- 9. Life history of ovarian endometriomas.- 10. Explication and defense of sampson's theory of pathogenesis.- 11. Scientific objectivity.- 12. Epilogue.- appendix i.- Appendix ii.- Bibliography.- Index.