VIII. An Account of a small Lobe of the human prostate Glands which has not before been taken Notice of by Anatomists. By Everard Home, Esq. F. R. S.
Read February 20, 1806.
Discoveries in the anatomy of the human body have been ever considered by this learned Society as deserving a place in the Philosophical Transactions: in the present improved state of our knowledge of this subject, a small addition to it cannot fail of being acceptable, since after the long continued labours of so many acute observers, such only can be expected, and even those are rarely to be acquired.
The subject of the present Paper is a portion of a gland, which from the obscurity of its situation has hitherto escaped observation: and were it not for the change produced in it by disease, which enlarges it so much that it sometimes completely shuts up the canal, by which the urine ought to pass, it would be little deserving of attention : but when this important effect is considered, the part itself becomes an object of very serious interest.
In stating the circumstances, which led to the present investigation, it may be necessary to mention that the prostate gland is liable in the latter period of life to enlarge: and when it does so there is frequently a nipple-like projection, which rises up and forms tumours of very different sizes in