go 6 Mr. H. Earle on the re-establishment of a portion 
which had permitted some of the urine to pass insensibly 
away, and had acted prejudicially in the former operation. 
By this attempt much more was gained, and about two-thirds 
of the canal were completed ; still, however, there remained 
a small aperture at the upper part. We again attempted to 
close this by denuding the edges with escarotics and the 
lancet, but it skinned over too rapidly to allow of any union 
between the opposite surfaces. A third operation on a smaller 
scale was therefore necessary, which so nearly completed the 
cure as to leave only an orifice large enough to admit a 
bristle, which has subsequently closed, and, at the present 
time (March, 1821), he remains perfectly well, and is able 
to expel the contents of his bladder pleno rivo. 
1 may perhaps incur the charge of prolixity in the fore- 
going narrative, but I conceive it important to give a circum- 
stantial account of the whole process, to mention all the 
difficulties I had to contend with, and the means which were 
employed to surmount them. Should I ever have occasion to 
repeat this operation, I should entertain sanguine hopes of 
succeeding at once, by avoiding some circumstances, and 
availing myself of others, a knowledge of which could only 
be gained by actual experiment. 
The above case is, I believe, the first on record in which so 
extensive a portion of the whole canal of the urethra has 
been restored ; and the mode of performing the operation has 
never, as far as I have been able to ascertain, been resorted to 
before. Mr. A. Cooper, in the second part of his Surgical 
Essays, which was published soon after my first operation on 
Whitaker, has given an account of two very interesting 
cases, in which he succeeded in closing unnatural openings 
