Median Perineal Prostatectomy.

We are to discuss to-day some methods of operative medicine for the relief of symptoms caused by a disease concerning which, in the entire field of medicine, none other has had so many and such diverse modes of treatment recommended, i. e., enlarged prostate. To do more would require time not at our disposal; however, a scant anatomic and physiologic descriptive outline of the operative field seems requisite. The prostate is usually described as a pear-shaped gland about the size of a horse-chestnut, with base directed upward toward the bladder, the apex downward and forward, with two lateral lobes and two commissures, the anterior joining the lateral lobes in front of, and the posterior—the lobulated portion of which is known as the third lobe—joining the lateral lobes behind the urethra. The first portion of the urethra with its musculature passes between the lobes of the prostate from base to