508 DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS. 



The following is Mr. Taylor's account of the operation in his own 

 words: — "April 1, 1833, 9 o'clock a.m. — The horse (having been pre- 

 viously prepared by physic and bran diet) was cast, and secured on his 

 back as for castration, and bolstered in that situation with two sacks of 

 corn firmly tied up. Having the penis drawn from the sheath by an 

 assistant (the rectum having been previously emptied), I endeavoured to 

 inject the bladder with warm water, but was only able to distend the 

 urethra, from the resisting contraction of the sphincter. I then passed 

 my jointed sound into the bladder, and, having given it to an assistant to 

 hold, pushed my hand into the rectum, and brought the body in the 

 bladder into contact with it, and the assistant was satisfied it was a stone 

 that struck the end of the sound. Continuing this instrument in the 

 bladder, held by the assistant, I placed the fingers of my left hand upon the 

 perinaeum, opposite the symphysis pubis, and, drawing the integuments 

 up, kept the parts tense. I then commenced the external incision imme- 

 diately below the arch of the pubes, close on the left of the raphe, and 

 continued it down obliquely by the side of the anus, making the external 

 wound three inches and a half in length. I then divided the fiischia and 

 transversalis perinaei muscle, and introduced the fore-finger of my left 

 hand into the wound, and distinctly felt the pubic artery where it enters 

 the bulb. I kept my finger upon it, and carried on my deeper incision 

 below it, laterally, down by the side of the rectum, through the connec- 

 ting cellular texture, occasionally feeling for the sound of the urethra, 

 which I cut down upon in its membranous part, beyond the bulb, though 

 with some little difficulty, which I apprehend was in consequence of the 

 jointed part being moveable. A straight fluted staff was then introduced 

 into the bladder, through the opening in the urethra, and the calculus 

 again distinctly felt and heard on being struck. The sound was with- 

 drawn the forceps introduced, and the stone attempted to be extracted, 

 supposing from its size, compared with the dilatability of the neck of the 

 bladder, that it might be extracted without division of the neck ; but that 

 not being practicable on account of the sphincter forcibly contracting, 

 the fore-finger of the left hand was introduced into the bladder, which 

 served as a director to a long probe-pointed bistoury, which was then 

 passed within the neck of the bladder, and its division completed 

 by withdrawing the bistoury, keeping the edge downwards and 

 outwards in a line with the external wound. The empty calculus 



