the two sides of the canal together, and at the same time stretches it from the anterior edge or side to the posterior, so that the canal instead of being round, is flattened into a narrow groove. Sometimes the gland swells more on one side than the other, which makes an obliquity in the canal passing through it.
"Besides this effect of the lateral parts swelling, a small portion of it, which lies behind the very beginning of the urethra swells forward like a point, as it were, into the bladder; acting like a valve to the mouth of the urethra, which can be seen, even when the swelling is not considerable, by looking on the mouth of the urethra, from the cavity of the bladder, in the dead body. It sometimes increases so much, as to form a tumour projecting into the cavity of the bladder some inches."[1]
From the first paragraph it is evident that Mr. Hunter was unacquainted with this lobe; and in the second we see that his knowledge of the disease led him to conclude, that in the natural state of the gland there was a portion of it in this situation : but neither at that time, nor at any future period of his life, did he prosecute the inquiry.
Although a great part of my time has been for many years occupied in attending patients labouring under complaints of the bladder and urethra, and my opportunities of examining these parts after death have been very frequent, my attention has been always so much employed on the modes of emptying the bladder, (an operation, which in many cases is attended with considerable difficulty,) that it never occurred to me to institute an inquiry for the purpose of attaining an accurate
- ↑ Hunter on the Venereal Disease, page 169.
