A lecture, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons : being a commentary on Mr. John Hunter's Preparations of the diseases of the urethra and bladder / by Charles Bell, F.R.S.

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture, delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons : being a commentary on Mr. John Hunter's Preparations of the diseases of the urethra and bladder / by Charles Bell, F.R.S. 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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    to pass urine every half hour; his nights are spent in continual efforts J he is incessantly on his knees, and can obtain no rest; he becomes exhausted and feverish, and is in momentary danger of becoming delirious. In such a case, you open the urethra behind the stricture with the knife, and the salutary effects are instantaneous ; for, by a curious law of the animal economy, the instant that the difficulty of passing urine is removed, the bladder remits its efforts, and, instead of being diminished in capacity, it begins to dilate more and more freely : every time that the urine is voided, there is more discharged, until the natural capacity of the bladder is restored. But the operation is a nice one: the object being, not only to permit a free evacuation of urine, but to cut through the stric- ture, and to pass a catheter along the whole urethra into the bladder. The instrument is retained until the incision be healed, and the urethra regenerated. X. On this latter subject I would detain you a few minutes; viz. on the regeneration of the urethra. The operation which is per- formed for this intention may appear to be well done, when, in truth, it is very badly performed. The catheter being cut upon and brought out at a part of the urethra before the stricture, and the urethra then opened behind the stricture, the instrument is intro- duced into the posterior part of the canal and into the bladder. But, notwithstanding these appearances of success, there may be a defect here, in leaving a considerable part of the natural canal of the urethra unoccupied by the instrument: the point of it has been brought out anterior to the stricture, and introduced pos-