Specification of Robert Salmon : catheters and bougies.

  • Salmon, Robert.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of Robert Salmon : catheters and bougies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/10 (page 3)
    Salmons Improved Catheters and Bougies. and up into the bladder; and when so passed their elasticity is ail the time exciting an unequal and improper partial force on parts of the passage, they having always the tendency to become a strait line. To the common bougie covered with wax, although the best instrument, considerable objections are to 5 be found. The basis of these is a slip of cloth covered with wax, and rolled up to the size required. To this construction the following objection arises :— In rolling up a slip of cloth coated with stiff wax, it becomes a cylinder of cloth, and in mechanics it is well known that cylinders are most difficult to bend without breaking or distorting; and in rolling up and pressing such 10 bougies it commonly happens that they roll atwist, and some of the fine filaments of the cloth sometimes work to the surface of the bougie, which, from the moisture of the urethra, is raised, and becomes rough and irritating, and so frequently does this happen, that seldom is any bougie fit to be passed more than once. Again, the due pliability of these much depend on the con- 15 sistency of the wax or composition with which they are covered; if this be too hard (which by time they always get) they are apt,' on use in changing of their curvature, to crack and bear forcibly on some parts of the passage; if they are too soft they double in their course, and will not pass at all, or part of their composition is softened by the oil and warmth of the urethra, and so 20 rubbed off and left there. ; Having thus shewn the defect of these, the principle and advantage of my Invention may be thus understood. My jointed catheter being formed of a great number of pieces of metal or other solid substance, will, in its passage, adjust itself to the course of the canal without the least violence from its point 25 or sides. My metalic jointed bougie being similarly made (except being solid), possesses the same advantages, besides which also in the joints of both these such a quantity of oil or lubricating composition may be placed as to lubricate the urethra, or even convey a portion of it into the bladder. My improved pliant bougie will be found to differ from all others, inasmuch as its pliability 30 &nd power of resistance is given by the construction of the basis itself, and does not depend on the wax or composition with which it may be covered. Also there is no possibility of any filaments being worked to the side, they are so equally coated that they may be many times used. Having thus defined the principles, I shall now by Drawings and reference 35 exemplify the same, not confining myself to any particular size or material, or number of joints or shape of the pieces of which they may be made. Fig. 1, jointed metalic flexible catheter. A, tubular stem; B, B, tubular beads, either spherical or oval, or mixed; C, terminating bead, the neck thereof flattened, and having an eye to receive the wire or thread, and entering