On surgical diseases of women / by I. Baker Brown.

  • Isaac Baker Brown
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On surgical diseases of women / by I. Baker Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    352/468 (page 288)
    tent, then introducing the finger, so as to direct the catheter into the long axis of the bladder, and afterwards seizing it with a pair of forceps, as recommended by Sir Astley Cooper. In the other case, the instrument was in the bladder seventeen days, and removed in the same manner. In January, 1853, a young girl was admitted into St. George's Hospital under Mr. Hawkins {Lancet, May 28th, 1853), suffering from symptoms of stone in the bladder for four years, in consequence of having passed a hair-pin through the meatus into the organ. Attempts had been made repeatedly to extract it, but without success. On her admission the urine was found to be offensive, and it con- tained a large quantity of ropy mucus, but no blood. It came away involuntarily at first, but not afterwards, though the patient was obliged to pass it very frequently. When the sound was introduced, a foreign body, not easily movable, was felt in the bladder. It was extracted with extreme difficulty by first incising and then dilating the urethra and introducing the forceps. The hair-pin was broken on extraction, and was surrounded by an incrustation of triple phosphate, and with phosphate of lime. The urine was alkaline. After the opera- tion the patient could not retain her urine more than three hours at a time, except at night. In this, as in many cases of calculus in the female, there was, before the extraction, rather an impediment to the retention of urine than a difficulty in passing it. Among other symptoms of stone in the female, it may be noted that the meatus is always dilated, that there is invariably pain after passing the urine, generally pain in sexual inter- course, and that the urine often deposits a mucous, and some- times a sandy, sediment. Frequently there is vaginal cystocele in the first instance, followed by prolapsus uteri. Although the urgency of these symptoms varies a good deal in different cases, there is often much suffering. Sir Astley Cooper says {Lectures on Surgery) :— I think the symptoms of stone in the female are more urgent than those in the male. It is horrible to witness the sufferings which a woman experiences in consequence of this disease. She has a dreadful pain at