A report of the trial of Cooper v. Wakley, for an alleged libel, taken by shorthand writers employed expressly for the occasion : with an engraving of the instruments, and the position of the patient / together with B. Cooper's "Prefatory remarks" on the evidence, and a copious explanatory appendix, by Thomas Wakley.

Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report of the trial of Cooper v. Wakley, for an alleged libel, taken by shorthand writers employed expressly for the occasion : with an engraving of the instruments, and the position of the patient / together with B. Cooper's "Prefatory remarks" on the evidence, and a copious explanatory appendix, by Thomas Wakley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    a ery of, * Hush !' which was succeeded by the stillness of death, broken only by the horrible squash, squash, of the forceps in the perineum. ' Oh ! let it go;—pray, let it keep 11) !' was the constant cry of the poor man. This act lasted upwards of half an hour; the former upwards of twenty niinutes. The stone was eventually laid hold of, and never shall we forget the triumphant manner in which the Assistant Surgeon raised his arm and flourished the forceps over his head, with the stone in their grasp. The operator turned to the siudenls, and said, ' I really can^t conceive the cause of the difficulty.' The patient being upon the table, bound, while the operator was ' txplaining ' The man was put to bed much exhausted, but rallied a few hours afterwards, and leeclies were applied, in consequence of tenderness of the abdomen. He passed a rest- less night, was in great pain, and was bled from the arm on tiie following morning. Leeches were applied in the alternoon ;—and about seven o'clock in the eveniu-, death ended the poor fellow's sutFeriugs, about twenty-uine hourb after the operation. EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. There was a very large and sloughy wound observable in the perineum, and the scrotum was exceedingly dark coloured, from ecchymosis. The finger could be passed to the prostate without difficulty, which was not deeply situated; indeed, it was the declared opinion of Dr. Hodgkiu and Mr. Key, that the man had not' a deep perineum.' The cellular tissue throughout the pelvis was easily lacerable, and this was especially the case with the portion between the bladder and the rectum, admitting of the passage of the finger with great facility, and to a considerable distance. There was a tolerably fair lateral section of the prostate and neck of the bladder. The gland itself was lar'^er than natural, and the portion which is designated the third lobe, presented a singular appearance, being of the size of the tip. of the little finger, and forming a kind of valve at the neck of the bladder; part of this third lobe had a dark-coloured appear- ance, and it seemed as if some substance had been resting upon it. The bladder itself presented nothing remarkable. The peritoneum lining the abdominal parietes was highly vascular, and there was a slight quantity of turbid serum in the cavity of the abdomen. The kidneys had a mottled appearance throughout their cortical substance. There are two or three points in this case to which we beg particular attention • first the statement of Mr. B. Coopeh, at the time of the operation, that he ' could not reach the h/adder with his Jing-er,' as contrasted with the fact of the bladder beiu- very readily reached in the post-mortem examination ; the man not having a deep perineum. Secondly, the circumstance of the finger passing with facility between the bladder and rectum to a great depth, as considered in connexion with aiiother de- claration of Mr. Cooper, that he could not feel the stone with the forceps until the tune of its extraction, although a sound, passed into the bladder downwards from the penis, struck upon the stone ; as was the case also, ou one or two occasions' when a staff was passed at the perineal opening. ' The siirface of the calculus was rather larger than the disc of a shiUius- flat oval-shaped, and apparently consisting of lithic acid. ^ ' Our report of the operation of lithotomy at Guy's Hospital, in which Mr iiUANSBY CooPiSR, after employing a variety of different instruments, extracted the stone at the end of fifty-five minutes,—the average maxinnim of time in which this operation is performed by skilful surgeons being about six minutes;* has, as m,o-l,t have been expected, excited no ordinary sensation in the minds of the public as well as among the operator's professional brethren. Au attempt has been made to call in question the accuracy of our report, in a letter signed by a number of the dressers and pupils of the Borough Hospitals, which letter has been inserted, as an advertisement, in The Trmes and also in ihe Morning Herald. Some ofthe youti^ gentlemen who have afhxed their signatures to this letter, were present at the operl? t on, others, who were not present at the operation, have ucverihekss, with a genero- Ji^retion, added the weight of ther estmiony to that of the eye-witnesses of the melancholy exhibition, and volunteered J: .1'^^/? ^i^'^^' performance. Upon the value of this species of estimony we shall make no commem, nor do we think it material that the document to which we allude is signed, we believe, by not more than oue.third o( !he thanU^milfutei'^**'^''' operation performed by the senior surgeon of Guy's Hospital in less D 2