ts of the seminal ducts. The urethra is a most delicate and
sensitive canal, and is surrounded by tissues of like delicacy, and is
lined with a mucous membrane which is highly vascular, and filled with
sensitive nerves. The introduction of any instrument into this canal is
to be undertaken only when absolutely required, and when necessary. It
should be so skillfully and carefully effected that no pain or
irritation can result. The slightest awkwardness is liable to cause an
unnoticeable injury, which may result in a false passage, or an effusion
of plastic lymph around the canal, which, organizing, forms the most
troublesome kind of organic structure. By proper and early treatment all
danger and pain is avoided, and a cure effected in a very short time. In
an extensive practice, in which we yearly treat thousands of cases, we
have never yet failed to give perfect and permanent relief from
stricture, or disease of the prostrate gland, without the necessity of
using cutting instruments of any kind, when we have been consulted
before injury to the urethra has been produced by the improper use of
instruments. Having specialists who devote their entire time and
attention to the study of these diseases, we are able to relieve and
cure a large number painlessly and speedily, in which the awkward
manipulations of physicians or surgeons, whose hands, untrained by
constant and skillful use, not only fail to effect any benefit, but set
up new, or aggravate existing, disease.

This subject will receive a more full and complete consideration in
another part of this treatise.

THE PROSTATE GLAND.

The prostate is a gland of about the size and shape of a large chestnut,
lying just in front of the bladder, and surrounding the urethra. The
size of the prostate gland varies considerably with the age of the
person. In early life it weighs but a few grains. As puberty approaches
it becomes larger, and in the adult weighs from half an ounce to an
ounce. In old age it enlarges considerably, and sometimes presses upon
the bladder so as to impede the flow of urine. This condition is often
confounded with stricture, gravel, or stone in the bladder, by
inexperienced physicians. Hypertrophy, or enlargement of the prostate
gland, is not an unfrequent disease in the adult or middle-aged man.
Being in close contact with the bladder, when it enlarges it encroaches
on the bladder, pressing on it, and it has the effect of interfering
with the func