MEDICATED CANDLE, OR BOUGIE, in surgery, a small stick of wax in form of a candle, which surgeons introduce into the urethra, either to dilate it and keep it open, or to consume carnosities. There are two sorts of these candles, the one simple, and the other compound. The simple are made of wax, of cat-gut, or even of lead; and the intention of them is to keep the canal of the urethra properly distended. Their thickness, therefore, should be proportioned to the diameter of that canal. The compound bougies are loaded with some medicine capable of producing a suppuration, or of destroying carnosities and excrescences in the urethra. See SURGERY.