Editing Lithotomy (section)

==History==

=== Ancient history ===
{{See also|Surgery in Ancient Rome}}
Human beings have known of bladder stones for thousands of years, and have attempted to treat them for almost as long. The oldest bladder stone that has been found was discovered in Egypt in 1901, and it has been dated to 4900 [[Common Era|BC]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Tefekli|first1=Ahmet|last2=Cezayirli|first2=Fatin|date=2013|title=The History of Urinary Stones: In Parallel with Civilization|journal=The Scientific World Journal|language=en|volume=2013|page=423964|doi=10.1155/2013/423964|issn=1537-744X|pmc=3856162|pmid=24348156|doi-access=free}}</ref> The earliest written records describing bladder stones are in [[papyrus]] dating from 1500 BC in [[Ancient Egypt]].<ref name=":0" /> Disease caused by the formation of stones was described in Mesopotamia from 3200 to 1200 BC; the first description of a surgical procedure to treat stones was described in the [[Sushruta Samhita]] by [[Sushruta]] around 600 BC.<ref name=":0" />

The presence of specialist lithotomists is described by Hippocrates, and is also included in the famous [[Hippocratic Oath]]: "I will not cut for stone, even for the patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners," a clear warning for physicians against the "cutting" of persons "laboring under the stone"; an act that was better left to ''[[surgeon]]s'', as distinct from ''[[physician]]s''. Lithotomy at the time involved operations to remove bladder stones via the [[perineum]]; like other surgery before the invention of anesthesia, these were intensely painful for the patient, and since antibiotics were not yet available, often resulted in deadly infection and inflammation as well.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="al-ZahrāwīStudies1973">{{cite book|last1=al-Zahrāwī|first1=Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās|last2=Studies|first2=Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern|title=Albucasis on surgery and instruments|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mjVra87nRScC&pg=PR8|year=1973|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-01532-6|pages=410–6}}</ref>

[[Ammonius Lithotomos|Ammonius]], who practiced lithotomy in [[Alexandria]] circa 200 BC, coined the term lithotomy, and acquired the sobriquet ''Lithotomus'' from the instrument he developed for fragmenting stones too large to pass through a small perineal incision.<ref name="Collier1831">{{cite book|author=Aulus Cornelius Celsus|authorlink=Aulus Cornelius Celsus|editor-last=Collier|editor-first=GF|title=A translation of the eight books of Aul. Corn. Celsus on medicine|edition=2nd|chapter=Book VII, Chapter XXVI: Of the operation necessary in a suppression of urine, and lithotomy|pages=306–14|publisher=Simpkin and Marshall|location=London|year=1831|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p2kFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA311}}</ref><ref name="Riches1968">{{cite journal|last1=Riches|first1=E|title=The history of lithotomy and lithotrity|journal=Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England|volume=43|issue=4|pages=185–99|year=1968|pmid=4880647|pmc=2312308}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> He used a small hook to keep the stone in one position, and then a blunt instrument to crush it.<ref name=":0" />

[[Aulus Cornelius Celsus]] (1st century), and the Hindu surgeon [[Susruta]] produced early descriptions of bladder stone treatment using perineal lithotomy.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Greive|first1=James|url=https://archive.org/details/b21948987_0002|title=Of medicine in eight books|last2=Celsus|first2=Aulus Cornelius|last3=Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh|date=1814|publisher=Edinburgh : Dickinson and company|others=Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Bhishagratna|first=K. L.|url=https://archive.org/details/sushrutasamhitavol2kunjalalbhishagratna_144_C/page/n377/mode/2up|title=An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita|publisher=The Author|year=1911|location=Calcutta|pages=vol. 2, pp. 332 ff}}</ref> The 7th-century Byzantine Greek physician [[Paulus Aegineta]]'s ''Medical Compendium in Seven Books'' contains a description of lithotomy that closely follows that of Celsus.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

[[Albucasis]] in the tenth century AD describes a procedure different from previous ones, using an incision to the side of the midline,<ref name=":0" /> and with a knife that is "sharp on two sides" (Spinks and Lewis say it is difficult to reconcile the drawing of the knife to the procedure).<ref name="al-ZahrāwīStudies1973" /> Albucasis also adds using forceps instead of the scoop and chisel of Ammonius to break up the stone. Albucasis also uses a "drill" for stones impacted in the urethra, a technique not recorded earlier.<ref name="al-ZahrāwīStudies1973"/> Techniques described as similar to Albucasis' were seen for the next eight hundred years.<ref name=":0" />

=== Middle Ages to modern times ===
Little changed in technique or instruments throughout the Middle Ages. Most lithotomists were commercial travellers, conducting procedures in places able to be attended by onlookers.<ref name=":0" /> In the 16th century, [[Laurent Colot]] and [[Pierre Franco]] (1505–1578) were pioneers in the suprapubic lithotomy method, in which an incision is made above the bladder.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Androutsos G|title=[Pierre Franco (1505–1578): famous surgeon and lithotomist of the 16th century]|language=French|journal=Prog Urol|volume=14|issue=2|pages=255–9|year=2004|pmid=15217153}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> [[Frère Jacques Beaulieu]] (also known as Frère Jacques Baulot<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://beaufort39.free.fr/baulot.htm|title=baulot|website=beaufort39.free.fr}}</ref><ref>''Un célèbre lithotomiste franc-comtois: Jacques Baulot dit Frère Jacques (1651–1720)'', E. Bourdin, Besançon, 1917</ref>) developed an operation that went in laterally to remove the bladder stones in the late 16th century. Beaulieu was a travelling lithotomist and a [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] Friar, with scant knowledge of anatomy. Beaulieu performed the procedure frequently in France into the late 16th century. A possible connection between the French nursery rhyme ''[[Frère Jacques]]'' and Frère Jacques Beaulieu, as claimed by [[Irvine Loudon]]<ref>{{Cite book|author=Loudon, Irvine|title=Western medicine: an illustrated history|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2001|isbn=0-19-924813-3 }}</ref> and many others, was recently explored without finding any evidence for a connection.<ref>{{Cite journal|vauthors=Ganem JP, Carson CC |title=Frère Jacques Beaulieu: from rogue lithotomist to nursery rhyme character|journal=J Urol|volume=161|issue=4|pages=1067–9|year=1999|pmid=10081839|doi=10.1016/S0022-5347(01)61591-X}}</ref> French composer [[Marin Marais]] wrote ''"Tableau de l'opération de la taille''" ("tableau of a Lithotomy"), a musical description of the operation, in 1725.<ref>{{Cite journal |author=Evers S |year=1993 |title=[Tableau de l'opération de la taille by Marin Marais (1725)—a bladder calculus operation represented in music] |journal=Urologe A |language=German |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=254–9 |pmid=8511837}}</ref>

A less invasive technique was described by Ottoman surgeons [[Sabuncuoğlu Şerafeddin|Sabuncuoğlu Serafettin]] and [[Ahi Ahmed Celebi]] in the sixteenth century, involving accessing the bladder through the urethra, and then washing it with fluid.<ref name=":0" />

Lithotomy was successfully performed by some practitioners in the 17th century, for example [[Johann Andreas Eisenbarth]] (1663–1727). Other important names in its historical development were [[Jean Zuléma Amussat]] (1796–1856), [[Auguste Nélaton]] (1807–1873), [[Sir Henry Thompson, 1st Baronet|Henry Thompson]] (1820–1904) and [[William Cheselden]] (1688–1752). The latter invented a technique for lateral vesical stone lithotomy in 1727, whereupon he was said to perform the operation in about one minute (an important feat before [[anesthesia]]).

In England, [[William Thornhill (surgeon)|William Thornhill]] performed his first suprapubic operation on a boy privately on 3 February 1722 (O.S.; 14 February 1723 N.S.)<ref>J. C. Carpue, [https://archive.org/stream/historyofhighope00carp/historyofhighope00carp_djvu.txt ''A history of the high operation for the stone, by incision above the pubis''] (J. Callow, 1819); the source also suggests an earlier operation in England by Dr. [[William Cheselden]], performed on 5 May 1722 (O.S., 16 May 1722 N.S.)</ref> The records of his work, published by his colleague, John Middleton, M.D., prove that his experience in the operation and his success were greater than any contemporary English surgeon could show.

Special [[surgical instruments]] were designed for lithotomy, consisting of [[dilator]]s of the canal, [[forceps]] and [[tweezer]]s, lithotomes (stone cutters) and cystotomes (bladder cutters), urethrotomes (for incisions of the urethra) and conductors (grooved probes used as guides for stone extraction). The patient is placed in a special position on a lithotomy [[operating table]], called the [[lithotomy position]] (which retains this name to the present day, when the same position is used for other unrelated medical procedures).

=== Move to less invasive procedures ===
Transurethral [[lithotripsy]], which was much simpler and with lower [[morbidity]], [[complication (medicine)|complication]] and [[Mortality rate|mortality]] rates, was invented by [[France|French]] [[surgery|surgeon]] [[Jean Civiale]] (1792–1867) and largely substituted for surgical lithotomy, unless the crushing of calculi was difficult or impossible.