ic& DISEASES Class I. 2. 3, 24, 



Introduce a candle fmeared with mercurial ointment. Sponge* 

 tent. Clyfters with forty drops of laudanum. Introduce a 

 leathern canula, or gut, and then either a wooden maundril, or 

 blow it up with air, fo as to diftend the contracted part as much 

 as the patient can bear. Or fpread mercurial plaiter on thick 

 foft leather, and roll it up with the plafter outwards to any thick- 

 nefs and length, which can be eafjly introduced and worn ; or 

 two or three fuch pieces may be introduced after each other. 

 The fame may be uied to comprefs bleeding internal piles. See 

 Clafs I. 2. 1. 6. Rub mercurial ointment on the fphincler ani 

 every night for a fortnight. 



May not this difeafe be cured by lunar cauftic applied on the 

 end of a peffary or bougie, in the fame manner as ufed by J. 

 Hunter, and fince by Mr. E. Home, in ftriclures of the urethra ; 

 when, on introducing the finger, a kind of membranous valve can 

 be diftinguifhed rather than an extenfive fcirrhus or induration. 

 See the next article. 



24. Scirrhus ureikm. Scirrhus of the urethra. The pafTage 

 becomes contracted by the thickened membrane, and the urine is 

 forced through with great difficulty, and is thence liable to dif- 

 tend the canal behind the ftriclure ; till at length an aperture is 

 made, and the urine forces its way into the cellular membrane, 

 making large fmufe?.. This fituation fometimes continues many 

 months, or even years, and fo much matter is evacuated after 

 making water, or at the fame time, by the action of the mufcles 

 in the vicinity of the finufes, that it has been miftaken for an in- 

 creafed fecretion from the bladder, and has been erroneously 

 termed a catarrh of the bladder. See a paper by Dr. R. W. 

 Darwin in the Medical Memoirs. 



M. M. Diftend the part gradually by catgut bougies, which 

 by their comprefTion will at the fame time diminifn the thicknefs 

 of the membrane, or by bougies of elaftic gum, or of horn boil- 

 ed foft. The patient ihould gain the habit of making water 

 dlowly, which is a matter 01 the utmoft confequence, as it pre- 

 vents the diftention and confequent rupture, of that part of the 

 iirethra, which is between the (trie/cure and the neck of the blad- 

 der. 



When there occurs an external ulcer in the perinaeum, and 

 the urine is in part difcharged that way, the difeafe cannot be 

 miftaken. Other wife, from the quantity of matter, it is gener- 

 ally fuppofad to come from the bladder, or proftate gland ; and 

 the urine, which efcapes from the ruptured urethra, mines its 

 way amongft the mufcles and membranes, and the patient dies 

 tabid, owing to the want of an external orifice to difcharge the 

 matter. See Clr.fsII. 1. 4. n 



Mr. Home 



