On the treatment of strictures of the urethra by mechanical dilatation, and other diseases attendant on them: with some anatomical observations on the natural form and dimensions of the urethra, with a view to a more precise adaptation and use of the instruments employed in their relief / by James Briggs.

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of strictures of the urethra by mechanical dilatation, and other diseases attendant on them: with some anatomical observations on the natural form and dimensions of the urethra, with a view to a more precise adaptation and use of the instruments employed in their relief / by James Briggs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    From these and other facts I have been led to enter- tain an opinion that the ready expansibility and con- tractility of the internal membrane of the urethra, •which have been ascribed to its muscularity, are in fact the results of this elastic property. The several circumstances here mentioned explain satisfactorily why, in the introduction of the catheter or sound, the instrument is usually stopped in certain parts of its course, and why, from any causes in- ducing inflammation in the canal, such parts are more liable to become the seat of stricture. SECTION II. Of the Introduction of Instruments into the Bladder. When it is considered that the urethra in its natural state is incapable, from its yielding texture and com- paratively loose attachments, of resisting a certain de- gree of force, and admits of being greatly altered from its natural form, and that instruments of various degrees of curvature, from the straight catheter of Paulus iEgineta* and Albucasis, to the double-hooked instrument of Petit, have been in use at different times, it may seem to warrant the conclusion that the choice of the form of the instrument employed in most nases is a matter of little importance. But I believe it must be admitted, that the nearer * lib. 6. ci\p.
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