Hugh Hampton Young, Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia, and “The Cure of Prostatic Obstruction”

Abstract

U T r ugh Hampton Young, a disciple of William Stewart alstead and the first chairman of urology at Johns opkins Hospital, was one of the most influential figres in modern urology. A comprehensive reckoning of is contributions to the surgical treatment of genitouriary disease lies well beyond the scope of this article. evertheless, “The Cure of Prostatic Obstruction” is a itting representation of Young’s career, revealing much f the clinical and academic acumen he applied to his tudies of prostate disease. More importantly, this article also presents a compreensive assessment of the state of the art in therapy for enign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) at the beginning of he 20 century. BPH is a common disease of aging aused by nonmalignant, and often uncontrolled, rowth of the prostate. Young developed the “conservaive perineal prostatectomy,” described in the article, rincipally for the treatment of BPH. What is particularly interesting about this article is ow the state of the art in 1911 was not all that different rom the state of the art in 2005. In this commentary, we dentify within Young’s article three fundamental priniples of BPH treatment and argue that—despite innoations in surgical technology, outcomes research, and hysiology—these principles have remained essentially nchanged for the last 100 years.