There is a similar but slightly smaller instrument in the same museum.
Bladder Clyster.
Greek, εὐθύτρητος καθετήρ.
There are frequent references to injection of the bladder. Although from some passages it is clear that the injection really reached the bladder, it is probable that at other times, under the heading of ‘Injection of the Bladder’, only irrigation of the urethra is meant, just as sometimes by irrigation of the uterus only vaginal douching is meant. Irrigation was practised by means of a bladder fixed to the end of a catheter. Galen (x. 328), however, calls the bladder syringe εὐθύτρητος καθετήρ, which may indicate that the eye was in the tip and not in the side, as in the ordinary catheter, for a catheter with a straight bore would not reach the male bladder.
Paul (VI. lix) says:
‘But since we often have occasion to wash out an ulcerated bladder, if an ear syringe be sufficient to throw in the injection it may be used, and it is to be introduced in the manner described above. But if we cannot succeed with it we must tie a skin, or the bladder of an ox, to a catheter and throw in the injection through its lumen.’
It is highly improbable that with an ear syringe the injection would have passed the triangular ligament and have actually reached the bladder in the male; but the use of the ear syringe may refer to irrigation of the female bladder, and then an ear syringe would suffice.
Blacksmith’s Bellows.
Greek, φῦσα.