Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Outlines of human pathology / by Herbert Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![kidneys. The frequency and severity of the fits of retention bear no relation to the absolute enlargement of the gland. However, when there is much enlargement, the bladder can never be completely emptied : several ounces of urine remain after its seeming entire evacuation, the parts of the enlarged prostate coming together and impeding the escape of more. It is not easy to account for the fits of retention, which have a character of spasm. They supervene unexpectedly, but are commonly attributable to exposure to cold. The urine, which flowed tolerably freely the day before, is completely obstructed. Relief can only be given by the catheter, which either is to be retained in the bladder, or passed twice a day for a period, varying from forty-eight hours to three weeks: the bladder becomes temporarily palsied by each of these attacks. The form and kind of catheter must be determined by the form of the prostatic enlargement, and that is only learnt by the trial of different forms and kinds of instruments. The most generally useful are silver catheters, with a long curve and point well turned up, and elastic catheters, which have been long kept upon a stilet of this shape. An hypertrophied prostate, after being divided in litho- tomy, commonly lessens. A prostatic enlargement is sometimes formed of a thick cyst containing mucus. \x. 125.] Calculi of the prostate are round, of a reddish colour externally, and composed of phosphate of lime. SECTION V. Urethra. The urethra is liable to acute and chronic inflammation^ to stricture and ulceration, to obstruction with calculi. 1. Acute inflammation of the membrane of the urethra may be produced by mechanical injury ; but the ordinary cause of the complaint is the contagion of gonorrhoea. In the latter case the complaint begins at the external orifice with](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21066735_0584.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
