lithotomy
/lɪˈθɒtəmi
/noun [mass noun]
Surgical removal of a calculus (stone) from the bladder, kidney, or urinary tract.Early Hindu surgeons performed advanced eye operations and practised lithotomy (surgical removal of a stone from the urinary tract) and plastic surgery....
- In passing, until the advent of anaesthetics and antisepsis about 200 years later, the only internal operation generally undertaken was removal of bladder stones, or lithotomy as it was called.
- Cheselden at St Thomas's introduced the keeping of accurate records that enabled him to analyse the morbidity and mortality of his lithotomy operation for bladder stones.
Derivatives
lithotomist
- Being one of those few operations where the surgeon can place in the patient's hand the fruits of his labour, in truth most lithotomists kept a spare stone on their person to bamboozle the wrong out patient in case of failure.
Origin
Mid 17th century: via late Latin from Greek lithotomia (see litho-, -tomy).