The surgical works, or, Statement of the doctrine and practice of P.J. Desault (Volume 2).

  • Desault, P.-J. (Pierre-Joseph), 1738-1795.
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The surgical works, or, Statement of the doctrine and practice of P.J. Desault (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    der, either with the water of Balaruc, or with a slight solution of martial vitriol, a decoction of chincona or some other tonic or astringent substances. We have employed these injections, and never derived any great advantages from them. It has also been advised to use warm diuretics, balsa- mics, cold baths, frictions with the tincture of winged cantharides, &c, but at this age these remedies are fre- quently injurious and seldom useful. As to ourselves, we recommend nothing but the use of the catheter in these kinds of retention of urine; this aid, when well directed, is often sufficient to restore its elasticity to the bladder; and when it has been insufficient, we have not obtained any more success from other means. We will conclude this article by a case which will throw some light upon the manner of conducting, when, in the operation for the stone, the patient is at the same time affected with palsy of the bladder, from the retention of urine that is produced by old age. CASE. N. E—, aged eighty-seven years, had laboured for two years under a retention of urine from debility of the bladder, the only infirmity of his long life, when in the month of May, 1794, he began to experience a trouble- some itching at the end of the glans; a sensation of weight and pricking in the perinasum; frequent, but often fruitless desires to make water and go to stool; dischar- ges of blood, at first rare and inconsiderable, and then more frequent and copious.* * This last symptom presents a phenomenon, which, no doubt, has not escaped the attention of the reader. The patient, in his ordinary state, made water only by the assistance of a catheter, which was introduced every time into the bladder. When, on the contrary, the contact of the stone (for on this cause all the symp-