A treatise on stricture of the urethra : containing an account of improved methods of treatment : with an appendix, on dilatation by fluid pressure in the treatment of urinary calculus and other diseases / by James Arnott.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on stricture of the urethra : containing an account of improved methods of treatment : with an appendix, on dilatation by fluid pressure in the treatment of urinary calculus and other diseases / by James Arnott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    37/264 (page 11)
    tlie contractility of the distinct fibres. The objection that strictures would always be completely circular, if caused by contraction of muscular fibres surround- ing the canal, instead of being only segments, or projections occupying but one side of it as is •sometimes the case, is untenable; for the fibres, although muscular, may not be complete circles, two or more being required to complete a circle. Fifthly, although in the human urethra the fibres cannot be distinctly shown, still in larger animals, the horse for instance, they are very evident, and as the part performs the same functions in both animals, we may reasonably suppose the analogy of struc- ture to hold as well as the analogy of function; and other animal structures might be mentioned which evidently possess a power of contraction and relaxation, without the appearance of fibres in their texture. These facts prove satisfactorily the contractility and fibrous structure of the urethra, and these are the points which it is of importance for the Surgeon to know. Whether the contractile fibres of the urethra should be called muscular fibres, is a matter of very little moment; though this seems to have been a chief point of dispute between those who have taken