Memoir on the cutting gorget of Hawkins : (containing an account of an improvement on that instrument, and remarks on the lateral operation for the stone) / by Antonio Scarpa ; translated from the Italian, by James Briggs.

  • Scarpa, Antonio, 1752-1832.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir on the cutting gorget of Hawkins : (containing an account of an improvement on that instrument, and remarks on the lateral operation for the stone) / by Antonio Scarpa ; translated from the Italian, by James Briggs. 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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    ensuing to his patient. It is not however so easy a matter as an inexperienced operator might perhaps imagine, to pass a knife, within the neck of the urethra, beyond the orifice of the bladder, so that in its course it may not deviate, sometimes con- siderably, from its lateral direction, and not divide the prostate gland to a proper depth, especially at the base, which surrounds the orifice of the bladder; for the point of the knife is easily stopped in the groove of the staff, and either from the strong resistance which the firm sub- stance of the prostate gland generally opposes to the gorget, so as to press it on the opposite side, or from the gland receding from the instru- ment, the surgeon is lead to suppose that he has laid this glandular body open to a sufficient depth ; when in reality he has only divided the apex, and a very small part of the base of it. To render the execution of the lateral opera- tion easier to surgeons of less experience than Cheselden, was the laudable motive which in- duced Hawkins to propose his gorget. He thought that two great advantages would be gained by