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LACERATION OF URETHRA BY A FALL.-

EXTRAVASATION OF URINE.-OPERA-

TION IN THE PERINEUM.

Edmund Bishop, actatis suæ 38, ad-mitted 24th of September, 1833, with acontusion in the perineum. He residedin the lower parts of Westminster, andwas a man of tolerably correct habits.Two days before admission he was

amusing himself by leaping over a chair.In his attempt he fell, and struck his pe-rineum against the projecting tenon ofone of the arms which was broken. Heimmediately experienced very acute pain,and perceived that an instant swellingand discoloration took place. He felta desire to make water, but he found he ’could not succeed. He immediately, !therefore, sent for a medical man, whopassed a catheter, and brought away apint of bright-coloured blood; this hadno urinous smell. He was considerablyrelieved, however, by this measure. Coldlotions were applied, and the hemorrhageceased. Once during the evening of thisday he made water of his own accord,but not to any great amount.Next day (Monday, 23rd Sept). Warm

poultice of turnip and carrot was applied, !and brought on the bleeding as bad as i

ever. With this blood, a little urine;flowed also.On Tuesday, about noon, he was ad-

mittcd. The scrotum was tumid andlivid, and this discoloration reached the iperineum, and affected a portion of eachthigh. An attempt was made to pass thecatheter No. 12, but without success ; itcould not be made to pass beyond the pro- istatic part of the urethra. A quantity offlorid blood flowed through the tube (atleast twenty ounces). It soon coagulated,and emitted no odour of urine. On thisoccasion the patient did not experienceany relief from the flux of blood. SirANTHONY CARLISLE sawthe patient soonafter admission, and was of opinion that no Iattempts at catheterism should be made,

and desired that the assistant-surgeon imight be sent for without delay. Mr.

W.LYNN very speedily arrived, and after a Iconsultation with Sir ANTHONY, he pro- ceeded to make an incision into the peri-neum. This he did a little to the left sideof the raphe. A large black clot of bloodwas emancipated, but was not tincturedwith any urinous properties. Another in- Icision divided the artery of the bulb, whichwas tied. All this afforded no relief tothe patient, who had a deep dull pain inthe hypogastrium. This region was ex-ceedingly painful to the touch, and ex- hibited a prominence corresponding to theshape of the distended bladder. An ex-amination of the perineum showed the

membranous part of the urethra to be en-tire, and it was inferred that the laceration,was situated in the bulbous portion; noiufiltration of urine could be detected.Mr. Lynn, after a little manœuvring,succeeded in getting a large round-

pointed catheter into the bladder, and in’producing a tolerably copious flow of

urine; this was attended by instantaneousrelief, and partial subsidence of the tumour! in the hypogastrium. On the evening ofthis day the urine came away naturally to’ a considerable amount. A gum elasticcatheter was introduced into the bladder,and maintained there.

, 28. To-day Mr. WHITE experienced’ some difficulty in passing the catheter,! and considerable hemorrhage was in con-sequence excited, and the patient was for: some time in a state of extreme faintnessand prostration.

30. The patient was much blanched hythe loss of blood. To-day he is recoveringhis colour a little. His pulse is 90; softand regular. Bowels open; the urine flowsentirely through the urethra; none istraceable in the wound. He has low dietand beef-tea.

! Oct. 1. He has had a tranquil night.This morning he had a good deal of un-; easiness in the hypogastrium and pain inthe wound. The catheter is consequentlyremoved, and replaced by another. The

pulse is quickened.I 10. Much better. A little urine drib-bles through the wound ; but the greaterpart is expelled, by the patient’s own ef-forts through the natural channel.

GUY’S HOSPITAL.

OBSTINATE ADHESION OF THE LABUE.

MARY LOMNARD, ætat. 18, lately ad-mitted, under the care of Mr. CALLA-WAY. It appears that she has had an ag-glutination of the labiae from childhood,there being only a very small opening inthat neighbourhood, which seems to be avery vexatious circumstance to the younglady. The aperture has always admittedthe free escape of the urine. Eight yearssince she said that she was " under SirAstley Cooper," who divided the parts ef-fectually, though not so permanently asmight have been expected, for a cicatrixformed, and she therefore (four years ago)again had it divided, and on that occasionby Mr. GOSSETT. There is at. present anopening, which permits of the escape ofthe catamenia and urine, and which, in-deed, Mr. CALLAWAY thought " sufficientfor all useful purposes;" but in order to

satisfy the girl’s apprehensions, the cica-

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trix was to be again divided. How camethe cicatrices, under good subsequenttreatment, to have formed ? We were oftoo delicate a frame of mind to questionthe damsel on the subject, though the in-quiry was one of interest; and probablythe performance of one of the great socialordinances of life will be resorted to, to

prevent the third recurrence of the mal-formation.

DEATH OF WILLIAM ROBERTS IN THELONDON HOSPITAL.

Note from MR. HAMILTON, the Assistant-Surgeon.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—May I request you, in answer to theletter signed "Mary Roberts" in your lastNo., to insert the following contradictionfrom the examination of witnesses, relativeto the case of W. Roberts, a patient de-ceased, which took place at the LondonHospital on Sept. 19th ult.Mrs. Roberts, widow, says, "That de-

ceased on Saturday, Aug 31, said he wasas well as ever he was in his life in gene-ral health."Fordham, a friend of deceased, says, Saw

him on Saturday, Aug. 31; thought hewas doing pretty well. Saw him on Sun-

day, Sept. 1 ; was in tolerable good spirits ;made no complaint on either visit." Thiswas the last day of Mr. Hamilton’s at-

tendance. Fordham saw him again onTuesday, Sept, 3, "and noticed a strangealteration."The notes of the case delivered in by Mr.

Yeoman, Mr. Andrews’ dresser, and nowdeposited with the Committee, show thatI attended on W. Roberts not merelydaily, but frequently twice a-day, andthat he was improving up to the lastmoment of my attendance, and only be-came worse on the following day in con-sequence erysipelas coming on,-that thepatient never was on "full diet," and thatthe first alteration made by Mr. Andrewswas to order half a pint of wine daily, and Ibeef-tea instead of middle diet. Yourobedient servant,

ALFRED HAMILTON.Broad-street Buildings,

Nov. 26, 1833.

ALFRED HAMILTON.

THE MEGALONIX.

[We had extracted the following inte-resting remarks of Sir CHARLES BELL onthe dissertations of CUVIER and JEFFER- .SON on the Megalonix from Sir Charles’s’

Treatise on the Hand, but could not findroom for them in the Number of THELANCET in which we reviewed that work.We now, however, give them a place inour pages. They atford a fuller account ofthe discussion than the Professor was en-abled to give in his late lecture.]

" The canine tribe are carnivorous, likethe feline, and both have the last bones oftheir toes armed with a nail or claw. Buttheir habits and their means of obtainingfood are different. The first combine akeen sense of smelling with a power ofcontinued speed; they run down their prey.The feline order have their superiority inthe fineness of their sight, accompaniedwith a patience, watchfulness, and stealthymovement; they spring upon their prey,and never long pursue it. They attaintheir object in a few bounds, and failing,sulkily resume their watch. When welook to the claws, we see a correspondencewith those habits. The claws of the dogand wolf are coarse and strong, and bearthe pressure and friction incident to a

long chase. They are calculated to ’sus-tain and protect the foot. But the tigerleaps upon his prey, and fastens his sharpand crooked claws into the flesh. Theseclaws being curved and sharp, we mustadmire the mechanism by which they arepreserved. The last bone, that which sup-ports the claw, is placed lateral to the pen-ultimate bone, and is so articulated withit, that an elastic ligament draws it back,and raises the sharp extremity of the clawupwards. The nearer extremity of thefurthest bone presses the ground in theordinary running of the animal, whilst theclaw is thus retracted into a sheath. Butwhen the tiger makes his spring, the clawsare uncased by the action of the flexortendons; and they are so sharp and strongin the Bengal tiger, and his arm is so

powerful, that they have been known tofracture a man’s skull by a touch in theact of leaping over him.

" President JEFFERSON having founda bone, which, by its articulating surface,and general form, he recognised to beone of the bones of the phalanx of an ani-mal of great size, he thought he could dis-cover that it had carried a claw ; and fromthis circumstance, he naturally enoughconcluded (according to the adage ex

unque leonem) that it must have belongedto a carnivorous animal. He next setabout calculating the length of this claw,and estimating the size of the animal. Hesatisfied himself that in this bone, a relicof the ancient world he had obtained a proofof the existence, during these old times, of alion of the height of the largest ox, and anopponent fit to cope with the mastodon.But when this bone came under the