Clover's evacuating apparatus - as used by Sir Henry Thompson - was the forerunner of all modern bladder evacuation equipment

Clover's apparatus, as pictured in ref 2.
"No one has ever done sufficient honour to the memory of Mr Clover...In turning his attention to anaesthetics it seems to me uncertain whether that art gained or surgery lost the more. At any rate, his apparatus for evacuating stone after lithotrity is unquestionably the prototype of all modern evacuators and in it lay the germ of the whole of modern lithotrity." Sir Buckston Brown delivering the Harveian Society of London address, November 7, 1901. (1)
"It consists of a ten-ounce india-rubber bottle, into the neck of which is fitted a glass cylinder with a perforation at the end...Mr Clover states that he has seen me use his apparatus some sixty or seventy times, and I must have used it at least two or three hundred times, so that I have a tolerably fair acquaintance with the instrument and with its capabilities." (2)
Sir Henry Thompson
1. Marston AD. A short survey of the life and work of Joseph Clover. The Medical Press. 1946.
2. Thompson H. Practical Lithotomy and Lithotrity or, an inquiry into the best modes of removing stones from the bladder. Second ed. London: J. & A.Churchill; 1870.
Clover's penile clamp 1873In 1873, Clover described the device below in the Lancet. As with all his surgical inventions, it was intended for use by urologists. Prior to abandoning his surgical practice for anaesthesia, Clover was developing skills in lithotripty. He subsequently worked closely with many of the leading urologists of his time, obviously maintaining a keen interest in the surgical procedures and cooperating with his surgical colleagues to develop equipment for their needs - as well as providing anaesthesia for the patients. |
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