History of the prosthetic treatment of impotence

Early records of observations of the os penis or baculum in mammals go back to Aristotle. These heritable cartilaginous supports were noted to help the penis during copulation. Prosthetic surgery for treatment of impotence was born from the initial experience with the use of the "artificial os penis" (rib cartilage) in post-traumatic reconstruction in 1936. Slow progress was made with the use of extracavernosal acrylic stents, followed by intracavernosal polypropylene rods, and finally the silicone prosthesis over the next 20 years. The introduction in 1973 of the inert silicone semirigid prosthesis and inflatable prosthesis met with great successes. Most recently (1985), there has been development of self-contained prostheses that are technically more simple to insert. Today, much more is known about specific organic causes of impotence that are amenable to many successful nonprosthetic alternative therapies, adding more stimuli to continued innovations in prosthetic surgery for erectile dysfunction.