Observations on lithotomy : being a republication of Dr. James Douglas' appendix to his History of the lateral operation for the stone, and of the other original papers relative to Mr. Cheselden's invention and improvement of that operation / to which is added, a proposal for a new manner of cutting for the stone, by John Thomson, M.D.

  • Douglas, James, 1675-1742.
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on lithotomy : being a republication of Dr. James Douglas' appendix to his History of the lateral operation for the stone, and of the other original papers relative to Mr. Cheselden's invention and improvement of that operation / to which is added, a proposal for a new manner of cutting for the stone, by John Thomson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    bandages, his knees having first been bent, and his heels brought back near his buttocks: then, his thighs being raised and separated from one ano- ther, he is kept in this posture by two assistants (commonly apprentices to some of the hospital surgeons) during the whole time of the operation, they holding his ancles with one hand, and his knees with the other: there is one more standing at his shoulders, in order to prevent his rising up or retiring from the operator while he makes the incision. Then Mr. Gheselden, standing before the patient at the end of the table, takes the catheter, first dipped in oil, and introduces it in the usual man- ner through the urethra into the bladder, where having searched for and discovered the stone, he delivers it to one of his fellow surgeons standing on his right hand, whom he desires first of all to sa- tisfy himself whether there be a stone or not; and then this assistant, holding the handle between his fingers and thumb, inclines it a little towards the patient?s right thigh, drawing the convex side close up to the os pubis, near the commissure or joining of the bones, to remove or bear up the urethra as far as may be from the intestinum rectum, being frequently desired by Mr. Cheselden, not to push it down, nor make the convex or grooved side thrust the parts forwards or outwards towards the perinaeum ; for though by so doing the place of the external wound would in some measure be ascer- tained, and the groove of the catheter be more easily found in making the internal one 5 yet the