Observations on strictures of the rectum and other affections which diminish the capacity of that intestine : including spasmodic constriction of the anus, the haemorrhoidal tumours (called piles) excrescences, and the prolapsus ani and the mode of treatment ... / by W. White.

  • White, William.
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on strictures of the rectum and other affections which diminish the capacity of that intestine : including spasmodic constriction of the anus, the haemorrhoidal tumours (called piles) excrescences, and the prolapsus ani and the mode of treatment ... / by W. White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    l manual investigation, may be easily mistaken for an enlargement of the prostate gland or schirrus uterus. An opinion has been held that women are more sub¬ ject to this disease than men. With this however my experience does not agree, as the greatest number of those by whom I have been consulted were males; yet, I would not even from this infer, that men are more liable. Although no age or sex appears to be exempt from this complaint, yet it does not come so frequently within our knowledge, until persons have arrived at the meri¬ dian of life; the number afflicted at that period has certainly been much greater than at any other, at the same time it is proper to notice that even in several of these cases, symptoms of the disease had been expe¬ rienced at a very early age. As the following observations of Sir Everard Home, relative to the formation of strictures in the urethra, are so very applicable to strictures in the rectum, I shall avail of them as they well tend to illustrate the subject under consideration. After endeavouring to prove the contractile power of the urethra, which no one can doubt, although the actual existence of muscular fibres has not been ascertained in the urethra, Sir Everard observes, “This contraction and relaxation form the natural and healthy actions of the urethra, but as this