Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Irritation of the prostate / by R. Harvey Reed. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![[2] A digital examination through the rectum will not reveal any percep- tible enlargement but a general tenderness over the entire gland. An examination with a bulbous bougie will not reveal any secretion ex- tending from the gland of more than ordinary consequence, in the purely congestive form of this irritation. Very frequently, when this difficulty has been allowed to go on with- out relief, whether the congestion causing the irritation is the consequent of a cold or the sequel of an attack of gonorrhea, or the result of con- tinued sexual abuses, it will often cause a catarrhal irritation of the ducts and even the follicles of the gland, which may go on until it involves all or a greater part of these, and even extends to the ejaculatory ducts. We have used the word catarrhal for the want of a better expres- sion, although we do not believe this to be strictly a catarrh of these ducts or their follicles, for we have not a profuse discharge, in fact, scarcely any discharge or flow at all, but a blocking up of these ducts, with a thick gummy, gelatinous, semi-solid material, of a greyish color, which, I am satisfied, in many instances, forms the nucleus for a prostatic or even a vesical calculus, or may degenerate into a calcareous mass, and remain in the ducts of the gland for years, a constant source of irritation and annoyance. Under these circumstances the patient will come to you complaining of a fulness, accompanied with tenderness in the perineum, a frequent desire to urinate, and sharp pain contraction of the acceleratores urinse muscles in the attempt to eject the last few drops of urine, but little or no pain is complained of except just at this time, other than previously mentioned. When there is hyperesthesia of the prostatic nerves the most prominent symptom is the occurrence of nocturnal emissions, ranging from every few nights to as often as twice in a single night. The patient generally suffers but little or no pain, although an examination with a sound or bougie, combined with a digital examination in the rectum, will reveal considerable tenderness of the gland, while the muscles will, in many of these cases, be found more or less flabby, and the patient generally pale, anemic and exceedingly nervous. Not unfrequently patients will come to the surgeon complaining of being impotent, which a careful examination will prove to be caused by an irritated condition of the prostate gland. Out of twenty cases reported by Prof. Gross, in the late edition of his little work on Impotence and Sterility, he rnentioned thirteen as hav](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22277171_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
