Volume 8

Contributions to surgery and medicine / by H.O. Thomas.

  • Hugh Owen Thomas
Date:
1881-1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to surgery and medicine / by H.O. Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    suspected, if while the tube is known to belong enough and fairly inserted into the bladder, the patient complains of suffering from the feeling of ordinary retention of urine. A clot should always be removed, I know that it is often said that a clot in the viscus is of no consequence, a small clot probably is of no moment, but except it be very small, it may give the patient nearly as much discomfort as calculi; but should there be retained for a few hours a large clot, the patient generally shows the signs of irritative fever, and it is then that large perineal tubes with parallel bores become extra servicable, as large clots can be broken up by the introduction of a suitable long probe, and afterwards washed or sucked away; or a urethral forceps can be introduced, clot broken and thus withdrawn, afterwards, antiseptically washing out the viscus. It is my practice, as before mentioned, as soon as the perineal tube has answered its purpose, to introduce an india-rubber catheter per urethram, to divert the urine from the wound. The introduc- tion of a rubber catheter is sometimes difficult if the surgeon has not carefully selected them • very many of them are sold with solid ends up to the eye, these, when wirestyleted and introduced into the urethra, when they begin to pass under the pubic arch, the stylet comes out through the eye, giving pain to the patient and alarm, perhaps, to the surgeon, who notices a slight bleeding from the perineal wound. To avoid this difficulty, let the surgeon purchase only those rubber catheters which, on examination, he finds are hollowed well past the eye, and feel soft at the end, showing the end to be a hollow cone, and when