Preputome
There have been two devices bearing this name,
both are now obsolete.
UTC
Al Akl’s Preputome
Al Akl designed the first device to be called a “Preputome”. It resembled a haemostat with a baseplate and solid bell at its ends. The bell was not intended to envelop the glans. Rather, the task of its dished end was to push the glans below the level of the baseplate ring and keep it there, out of reach of the scalpel. A discharge route was provided for any urine voided during the procedure.
The underlying principle of the device appears to rely heavily on an Italian patent dating from 15.Feb.1930 (number IT271652), something that is acknowledged in Al Akl’s patent. Described in the original Italian document as an implement for skinning animals that have been shot, one wonders if the earlier clamp was at one time used for human circumcisions. That may even have been the inventor’s intention, the true purpose of the device being disguised by euphemism.
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Al Akl’s Preputome.
(Based on an original drawing in Am. J. Surg. 68:402, 1945) |
Ayad’s Preputome
In 1971, Fouad M. Ayad of Warwick, Rhode Island, applied for a patent on an entirely different apparatus also called a “Preputome”, illustrated below.
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Ayad’s Preputome.
(As illustrated in US Patent documents) |
Acknowledgements
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