Editing Lithotomy (section)

=== 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).