An extremely thin, wire-like, manual surgical instrument designed for traversing and exploring urethral strictures and/or dilating the urethra, introduced directly or through an appropriately-threaded urethral catheter. The tip of the device can be bent or contoured to shapes that will facilitate the progression of the device through the stricture; the tip may be bulbous (an olive tip). It is typically made of plastic material [e.g., polyvinyl chloride (PVC)] with a threaded metal section. It may be threaded at the proximal end to enable it to connect to a filiform follower (e.g., a larger diameter bougie). This is a single-use device.