The pathology and treatment of stricture of the urethra, both in the male and female : Being the treatise for which the Jacksonian Prize, for the year 1852, was awarded by the College of Surgeons of England. / By Henry Thompson.

  • Thompson, Henry, Sir, 1820-1904.
Date:
MDCCCIV. [1854]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathology and treatment of stricture of the urethra, both in the male and female : Being the treatise for which the Jacksonian Prize, for the year 1852, was awarded by the College of Surgeons of England. / By Henry Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    tions of the healthy and morbid actions of the part, alone led him to regard the urethra as undoubtedly containing mus- cular tissue in its composition. Sir E. Home, in the first Homo’s re- volume of his work on Strictures of the urethra,* published scarcllcs- in 1805, expressed similar opinions, and subsequently inves- tigated the various structures entering into the composition of the urethra, erectile bodies, and intervening tissues, mi- croscopical examinations of which were made by Mr. Bauer ; and drawings of the objects described are given in the third volume of the work above mentioned, published in 1821.-f- Those however which relate to the histological elements of the tissue immediately surrounding the urethra are imper- fect, since the optical instruments used were far inferior to those possessed at the present day, and the distinctive mi- croscopical characters of the various fibres were unknown, the means employed being insufficient for the purpose. Hence is described but one kind of fibres, which he denomi- nated “muscular,” lying in a longitudinal direction around the urethra ; these are figured as they appeared when mag- nified to 15, 25, and 50 diameters, and there is little doubt but that they were the yellow elastic fibres and the areolar fibres, presently to be described as intervening between the mucous membrane and the layer of true muscular tissue. Mr. Wilson also corroborates these views in especial allu- Wilson’s sion to Sir Everard Home's work.j On the other hand, many views- writers have denied the possession of muscularity to the urethra, and others limit the occurrence of what they call spasmodic stricture solely to the membranous portion. * “ This natural power of contraction is common to the whole canal of the urethra, although probably not equally great in every part of it but this membrane, like every other muscular structure, is liable to spasmodic action, which produces a degree of contraction beyond the natural, and in that state the canal loses the power of relaxing till the spasm is removed.”—P. 18, vol. i. + “ The muscular covering by which the membrane is surrounded, or enclosed, is made up of fasciculi of very short fibres, which appear to be interwoven together and to be connected by their origins and insertions with one another; they all have a longitudinal direction The fasciculi are united together by an elastic substance of the consistence of mucus.”—Ibid. P. 28, vol. iii. 1821. t “Lectures on the Structure and Physiology of the Male Urinary and Genital Organs, by James Wilson, F. It. S., &c., 1821, p. 149-50. C-