DISEASES CLASS L 2, 3. 24. 



Introduce a candle fmcared with mercurial ointment. Sponge- 

 tent. Clyfters with forty drops of laudanum. Introduce a. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The fame may be ufed to comprefs bleeding internal piles. Ses 

 Clais I. 2. i. 6. Rub mercurial ointment on the fphincter ani 

 every night for a fortnight. 



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

 end of a peiiary or bougie, in the fame mariner as ufed by J. 

 Hunter, and fmce by Mr. E. Home, in Uriel: ures of the urethra; 

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

 be diflinguifhed rather than an extenfive fcirrhus or induration. 

 See the next article. 



24. Scirrhus urethra. 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 ftri&ure ; till at length an aperture is 

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

 making large fmufes. 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 aclion of the mufcles 

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

 creafed fecretion from the bladder, and has been erroneouily 

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

 Darwin in the Medical Memoirs. 



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

 by their compreflion will at the fame time diminim the thicknefs 

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

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

 flowly, which is a matter of the utmoit confequence, as it pre- 

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

 urethra, which is between the itridture and the neck of the blad- 

 der. 



When there occurs an external ulcer in the perinasum, and 

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

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

 ally fuppofed to come from the bladder, or prod-ate gland ; and 

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

 way amongflrthe mufcles and membranes, and the patient dies 

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

 matter. See ClafsIL i. 4. u. 



Mr. Home 



