The prostate gland and its enlargement in old age / by Decimus Hodgson.

  • Hodgson, Decimus.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The prostate gland and its enlargement in old age / by Decimus Hodgson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    48/136 page 38
    ■ 38 HEALTHY MICTURITION. bulk of the fluid is expelled. Ultimately, the last portions are extruded from the urethra, perhaps by contraction of its organic muscular coat. From the foregoing account it is seen, that the prostatic urethra has particular functions in regard to the act of sexual intercourse ; that the great bulk of the productive fluids is, in the first instance, poured into it, and that they then pass forwards along the urethra, their falling back into the bladder being guarded against by congestion of the erectile tissue behind the utricle ; whether the neck of the bladder and posterior part of the prostatic urethra is blocked up purely by congestion of the erectile tissue, or by those means in conjunction with contraction of the circular fibres of the prostatic urethra, it is difficult to say. HEALTHY MICTURITION. The part which the prostatic urethra takes in the act of micturi- tion comes next under consideration. So far as regards the healthy retention of urine in the bladder, or its evacuation, this portion of the urethra may be looked upon as a prolongation of the neck of the bladder; here, for the first time, in the passage of the catheter, is any peculiar sensation felt; Mr. Guthrie has shewn that the instrument excites, on its arrival at the prostatic urethra, a peculiar uneasy pain, and a desire to micturate; the former may probably be referred to the sensitiveness with which it is endowed in virtue of the orifices of the ejaculatory ducts opening into it; the latter, to the dilatation of the urethra by the In the distended condition of the bladder, its walls are kept in constant apposition with the retamed urine, by means of the elastic cellular tissue which binds together the muscles, and connects them to the mucous lining; the muscles having nothmg to do with the adaptation of the bladder to its contents in a state of rest. When the urine has accumulated to a pint and a halt, or thereabouts, it excites the desire for micturition ; the general muscular coat of the bladder commences an active contraction and propels the fluid towards the vesical orifice, the longitudmal fibres principally effecting this object, while the circular and reticular bands at once aid in the expulsion of the urme, and serve to maintain uniformity in the shape of the viscus as it becomes contracted ; the orifice of the bladder is di ated by the urine under the influence of the contracting muscles, and the stream, once established, flows uninterruptedly along the urethra. There can be no doubt, that those fibres of the longitudinal coat, which are attached to the uvula and veruraontanum, draw those
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