On a mode of after-treatment in operations upon the urinary organs : with illustrative cases / by T.R. Jessop.

  • Jessop, Thomas Richard, 1837-1903.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a mode of after-treatment in operations upon the urinary organs : with illustrative cases / by T.R. Jessop. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    1/8
    {From the BRITISH Medical Journal, June \<)th, 1869. ON A MODE OF AFTER-TREATMENT IN OPERATIONS UPON THE URINARY ORGANS : WITH ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. By T. R. JESS OP, F.R.C.S., Surgeoa to the Leeds Public Dispensary; Lecturer in Physiology at the Leeds School of Medicine. Although the two principal operations upon the urinary apparatus— lithotomy and perineal section—are surrounded by many difTiculties and dangers, it will be readily admitted that, if it were possible to do away with the presence of urine for a sufficient length of time after the ope- ration to allow of the wound being healed—if it were possible, that is to say, to put wounds of the urethra under like conditions with wounds in most other parts of the body—these operations would be deprived of more than half their terrors. The structures through which the surgeon cuts in the removal of a stone from the bladder, or in the division of a stricture, are not of that importance, that their entirety is necessary to the well-being of the individual; they have no vital functions to per- form; they may be divided and redivided; they may be so much altered by inflammatory disease, as to be hardly recognisable, and yet be equal to the performance of their offices, in such a manner, that the rest of the system shall know nothing of their imperfections. So long as the urethral passage remains tolerably patent, it matters little what the condition of its immediate surroundings may be. Wounds of the urethral walls, and of the prostate, heal readily enough oftentimes under the most unfavourable circumstances; and in cases where the urethra has been laid open to a very considerable extent, where the prostate has been freely incised, and the tissues of the bladder itself even divided, there is every reason to believe, that union would be rapidly and safely effected, were it not for the interference by the flow of irritating urine over the cut surfaces.