In view of the fact that external urethrotomy can never promise a lasting benefit and is never performed with the hope of effecting a cure, it is my opinion that it should be replaced by an operation that is logical to that end.
Russell's partial resection, Marion's radical resection and Cabot's plastic operation are operations which have advantages over external urethrotomy, but which are more or less difficult of performance, because of injury to the corpus spongiosum which causes hemorrhage and obscures the field.
In a previous communication1 I reported four cases of urethral stricture, with acute retention of urine, treated without external urethrotomy, and I made reference to an operative procedure, which I thought, at that time, promised lasting results.
In that communication there was a report of one case of urethral stricture in a patient on whom previous external urethrotomy had been performed and who had a