ant interference by--the always present
in such cases--unavoidable erections.

Several years ago I advised circumcision to a gentleman owing to a
contracted condition of the muscles of one hip and thigh, which was
threatening to render him a deformed cripple; he had a congenital
phimosis and a very irritable glans penis. The operation was performed
in a proper manner by a surgical friend, but this friend, unfortunately,
was a great believer in antiseptic and wet dressings. A few days after
the operation he called upon me to ask me to go and see the patient, as
they were both in a pickle, the patient being exceedingly angry, being
in constant misery, and the penis so denuded by the giving way of the
sutures--owing to the erections--that it looked to the patient as if he
never could have a whole penis again, and the doctor saw no way out of
the difficulty; the penis was, in reality, a dilapidated and
sorrowful-looking appendage, and anything else but a thing of beauty or
pride; it was raw, angry-looking, and bleeding at every move; the first
wink of sleep was followed by an attempt at erection that raised the
patient as effectually as an Indian would in scalping him; so that,
taken altogether, the penis, anxious countenance, and the flexed
position of the whole body to relieve the tension on the organ, the man
looked about as battered, cast down, and sorrowful as Don Quixote did in
the garret of the old Spanish inn, with his plastered ribs and
demolished lantern-jaw.

Luckily, the patient was seen before the retracted portion of the penile
integument had had a chance to condense and indurate. The bed was
slopping wet with the drenchings of carbolized water that the penis had
undergone, the man's clothing was necessarily damp, and the whole
bedding and clothes were steamy,--all of which greatly added to his
discomfort and tendency to erections. The man was washed, placed in a
new, clean, and dry bed, and his clothing changed. The organ was then
forced backward until the preputial frill or edge was approximated to
the cut end of the penis-skin, where it was made fast by an
uninterrupted suture around the whole of the circumference. A short
catheter, about three inches in length,--the catheter being as full size
as the urethra would comfortably hold, and of the best and thickest of
the red, stiff variety,--was introduced into the urethra. This protruded
about half an inch beyond the meatus. A stiff, square piece of
card-bo