title: Sounds and Charrière: the rest of the story.
abstract: Parisian cutler Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière (1803-1876) contributed greatly to surgical disciplines with innovative tools, but his legacy is the gauge system he developed in 1842 that is still used for catheters, probes, and dilators. Sounding devices have been documented in the surgical armamentarium since 3000 BC, with practitioners such as Hippocrates, Galen, Celsus, and Al-Zahrawi espousing theories on sounding and the related topics of stones and urinary obstruction. The medical revolution in 19th-century Paris propelled technology and one of the most influential men involved was Charrière, who pioneered diverse technical processes in the manufacturing of surgical instruments, led one of the largest instrument manufacturing companies, and improved on tools introduced by predecessors including his mentor Guillaume Dupuytren. Most importantly he created the catheter scale that, despite not being favored in its country of origin, became an international standard and is known today as the French system. The classification of sounds, catheters, and bougies has undergone many variations throughout the years, but the French scale still holds in current medical practice as an accurate and nearly universal sizing tool.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Tarry 16-703, 303 East Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. Electronic address: dkbowen@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Diana K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Bowen
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University of Michigan Medical School, 1500 East Medical Center Drive, 3875 Taubman Center, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Electronic address: juliwan@med.umich.edu.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.affiliation: The Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute, 600 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. Electronic address: rainere@auanet.org.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Engel
authors.affiliation: UCSF School of Medicine, 1600 Divisadero, San Francisco, CA 94115, USA. Electronic address: rplyon@napanet.net.
authors.forename: Richard P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Lyon
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Tarry 16-703, 303 East Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. Electronic address: e-dielubanza@md.northwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Elodi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dielubanza
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, University of Michigan Medical School, 1500 East Medical Center Drive, 3875 Taubman Center, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Electronic address: dabloom@med.umich.edu.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Bloom
mesh_terms: D005602:France; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008792:Metric System / Q000266:history*; D013525:Surgical Instruments / Q000266:history*; D013520:Urologic Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation
keywords: Catheter scale; Charrière; History; Urethral sounds