Milk Maids

Two of our patients were having penis problems. One penis was passing gas and the other one was dripping pus. The poor guy with the farting penis had the bigger problem. His colon had, for some unknown reason, merged with his bladder. A passage formed between the two, a fistula. Gas was passing from his digestive tract to his urinary tract. Major surgery corrected that problem.

It is the pus dripping penis that has me wondering. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that the doctor played a practical joke on the nurses. The patient had a suprapubic abscess, meaning that a pus filled sac was attached to the top of his bladder, in his lower abdominal area. In addition to antibiotics and lancing the abscess, the doctor ordered the nurses to "milk" the penis three times a day. This is the part that makes no sense to me.

If the abscess were in the penis, I could understand how milking it might help drain the pus. But the abscess was in the top of the bladder. How does pulling on the penis drain an abscess in another body part? If the doctor just wanted to make sure that the bladder was drained of pus, asking the patient to urinate would wash it out. Yanking the penis for several minutes, I'm guessing, emptied fluids from the testicles, which were not infected.

The patient, an old man, did not seem to mind the treatment. I suspect the doctor is telling his friends about the practical joke he played. But, I did not go to medical school, so it is possible that I'm missing something here. Does anyone have any explanation of how milking a penis would drain an abscess on top of the bladder?