The prostatic comes to us under such a variety of conditions as regards himself, his prostate, his bladder and his kidneys as to render any routine plan of treatment, whether palliative or radical, quite manifestly absurd. It is therefore, not altogether surprising that the list of methods and operations more or less lauded for the relief of these sufferers is a very long one, including procedures most ingenious, curious and even parodoxical.
Doubtless some of the more indirect methods of proposed relief are more interesting to enthusiastic surgeons sustained by hope and the spirit of discovery than productive of actual relief to humanity. Yet there is little doubt that most of the more than a score of different procedures have some merit in different cases. This profusion of surgical resource; or, if you prefer, this great variability in the tout ensemble of individual cases of prostatism, is exceedingly embarassing, since