A case of large secondary prostatic calculus, removed by perinæal incision / by T. Herbert Barker.

  • Barker, T. Herbert (Thomas Herbert), 1814-1865.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of large secondary prostatic calculus, removed by perinæal incision / by T. Herbert Barker. 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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    14M.—The urine has escaped through the catheter. The instru- ment having produced so much uneasiness as to prevent him from sleeping, was withdrawn, and he was directed to remain undisturbed. 16//j.—Urine dribbles away per urethram. The needles were removed, and he was directed to remain as quiet as possible a few days longer. Prom this period the urine escaped by the urethra, but he was unable to retain more than about an ounce at a time. The wound healed soundly, and he went to work in eight weeks after the operation. KEMAliKS. The calculi are twenty-nine in number, and weigh three ounces, four drachms, and one grain, or 1,681 grains. They are of a whitish colour and porcelainous lustre and hardness; indeed, the latter character is so well marked that it is with some difficulty that any impression can be made upon them with a knife. The entire calculus was composed of these several portions closely cohering by curved faces, so that on any violence being applied to the mass it would readily break up, each portion pre- senting a conchoidal lustrous surface. One of the largest calculi was forwarded to Dr. Golding Bu-d, for the purpose of being submitted to a chemical examination. That gentleman remarks, in a note dated January 23, 1844:— Had I seen this calculus without receiving any history, I should at once have pronounced it prostatic, and such at this moment I suspect to have been its origin. J\Iy own view of the origin of this very curious form of con- cretion is, that the calculous matei'ial is deposited in cells connected with, or forming part of, the prostate gland, and that these enlai'ge as an increase in the amount of calculous deposit occm-s, until the walls of the cells become exceedmgly attenuated and ultimately destroyed. By the cohesion of calculous masses deposited in adjoiniug cells, the whole concretion is built up so loosely, however, that a slight blow will cause it to be disintegrated into its several component portions. The calculus is identical in composition with the concretions occasionally found in glandular structures, (as salivai-y, bronchial