Case of rapid lithotrity : with remarks on Bigelow's operation / by James F. West.

  • West, James F., 1833-1883.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of rapid lithotrity : with remarks on Bigelow's operation / by James F. West. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    (Reprinted from the Birmingham Medical Review, January, 1883.) CASE OF SAPID LITHOTRITY, WITH REMARKS ON BIGELOW’S OPERATION.* BY JAMES F. WEST, F. R.C.S., SENIOR SURGEON TO THE QUEEN’s HOSPITAL, BIRMINGHAM. The subject of rapid lithotrity is one which is at present deservedly exciting considerable attention. Such a case as that recorded by Mr. Reginald Harrison at the recent Worcester meeting of the British Medical Association, where a stone weighing over two ounces was removed at a single sitting, together with others which have been brought forward in this room, or which have been published in the various medical journals during the past few years, induce one to look upon Bigelow’s operation as one of the greatest improvements in modern surgery. You will observe that I do not make use of the newly-coined term, litholopaxy, which has been given to this operation. By adopting it I should assent to the idea that to Prof. Bigelow belonged the credit of washing out the fragments from the bladder ; this, we all know, was previously done, though less perfectly, by Clover’s instrument, which has been in use by all lithotritists for many years. To Bigelow belongs the credit of doing at one sitting what previously was done at four or five, of leaving no fragments whatever to irritate the bladder, and for that discovery he is entitled to very high commendation. To call it lithotrity at a single sitting would in my judgment be far better than to call it by so unsuitable a word as litholopaxy. I have recently had under my care a man with a lithic * Paper read at the Birmingham and Midland Counties Branch of the British Medical Association, on Nov. 9th, 1882,