Surgical observations : being a quarterly report of cases in surgery : treated in the Middlesex Hospital, in the Cancer Establishment, and in private practice : embracing an account of the anatomical and pathological researches in the School of Windmill Street / by Charles Bell.

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical observations : being a quarterly report of cases in surgery : treated in the Middlesex Hospital, in the Cancer Establishment, and in private practice : embracing an account of the anatomical and pathological researches in the School of Windmill Street / by Charles Bell. 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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    the operation performed, when the staff is feed upon the stone, and when the bladder is cut without disturbing this relation of the stone and the staff; when the stone is readily felt, merely by introducing the finger along the staff. On the other hand, if the staff be withdrawn when the gorget is introduced, and the gorget withdrawn when the forceps are introduced, the stone is to be sought for, and then we see the surgeon groping about for the stone, opening and closing the blades of the forceps, and pushing them this way and that, as if in search for something in a large and empty pocket! All this time he is carrying the con- tracted bladder on the end of the forceps, instead of moving the instrument into different parts of the bladder. This is the place to observe that the facility of cutting into the bladder will depend upon the manner in which the staff is held. If the assist- ant hold it close up to the pubes, the surgeon will be embarrassed: if he bear his weight upon it, the prostate will be pressed against the rectum, and the surgeon, in cutting into the bladder, will cut largely, and yet never find the incision open; for, as the incision is prolonged, the staff is still pressing downwards, and there is no space be- twixt the instrument and the margin of the inci- sion. It is, therefore, the assistant's duty to keep thestaffsteadily poised betwixt those two extremes. Much of the facility of doing the operation will depend upon the manner in which the staff is held.