Cure of a Suppreffion of Urine. '585 
laft letter, that it was not a new operation; and that I 
fliould find an account of it in pouteau’s Melanges de 
Chirurgie . I have procured the book, and have read the 
paper with great fatisfaCiion ? and am much obliged to y ou 
for your intelligence. I do not prefume to claim any 
merit from a thing which took its rife from mere acci- 
dent. The obftruCtion which the pipe met with when the 
patient’s mother attempted to give him the clyfter, fug- 
gefted the method of piercing the bladder by the anus ; and 
lam perfwaded, that the fame thought would have arifen, 
on a like occafion, in the mind of any thinking man. 
And I beg you would believe, that I have no fmall latisfac- 
tion in finding it occurred to M. flurant, the ingenious 
author of the paper on that fubjeCt, in that publication, 
•from a circumftance, w T hich, though not exactly fimilar, 
amounted nearly to the fame thing. This furgeon hav- 
ing introduced his finger into the anus, to examine the 
hate of the bladder, in order to perform the punCture in 
perineeo , found it fo round and tumid, and fo much within 
the reach of his inftrument, that he thought he could 
perforate it with fafety in that place ; and, from a little 
reflection on the hruCture of the parts, was convinced of 
the expediency of operating in this manner, in preference 
to any other. 
Before I quit this fubjeCt, I think it proper to acquaint 
you, that I have found acompofltion of calomel and opium* 
in large dofes, the beh internal remedy for fuppreflions 
of urine, in general ; and that I have repeatedly feen this 
medicine fucceed after tire ufual means have failed. I am 
convinced, 
