Reasons To Use A Catheter
Catheters and catheter supplies can be used for many different reasons: to drain urine from the bladder, drain fluids from abscesses, to administer fluids in the veins (intravenous) – such as medicine or nutrition; to measure blood pressure or intracranial pressure, to administer anesthetic medication into the body, get oxygen into the lungs, or other fluids or organisms into the body such as semen or an embryo.
Catheters were developed centuries ago to drain fluid from the body or to administer medicine. It’s thought that the ancient Syrians created catheters from reeds and that ancient Greeks developed a hollow metal tube to be inserted through the urethra into the bladder. It became known as a “katheter.” It’s also documented that Benjamin Franklin invented a flexible catheter to treat his brother’s bladder stone. (more…)