48 Mr. Hutchison on the 



I am fully aware that there are those who may imagine the. 

 trifling difficulty we experienced in extracting the stone, arose 

 from the depth, narrowness, and consequently from the supposed 

 tightness, as it were, of the wound, through the parietes of the 

 abdomen ; but I can assure them that such was not the fact, for I 

 enjoyed the most perfect freedom in that respect. The circum- 

 stance in my mind arose rather from the position of the stone, its 

 size, and the strong contraction of the bladder upon it ; for it will 

 be borne in recollection that the bladder, in this case, had never 

 been distended beyond the size of the calculus, and that which two 

 ounces of urine would occasion. What the bladder wanted in ca- 

 pacity, it possessed in the increased thickness of its parietes, for 

 it was fully a quarter of an inch thick at the part divided ; so that 

 its muscular power must, therefore, have been considerable. I 

 cannot avoid, in this place, repeating the great advantage to be 

 derived from dislodging the stone, in such cases, by the introduc- 

 tion of the finger into the rectum, and which appears to me a 

 great improvement in this mode of operating. 



19th June. Slept two hours during the night ; about six ounces 

 of urine came through the catheter, the rest by the wound. His 

 pulse this morning was 120, and full ; he was bled, therefore, to 

 twenty ounces^ and I prescribed saline draughts every three 

 hours, each containing ten drops of liquor antimonialis. He was 

 otherwise free from pain, and only complained of a smarting 

 in the wound. 



20th. Had four hours continued sleep during the night, for the 

 first time in his life : urine passed equally by the instrument and 

 the wound: pulse about 100, and soft, and he perspired profusely 

 during the night : the draughts were continued, and he was sup- 

 plied with barley-water for his common drink; An aperient 

 draught was prescribed for the following morning. 



21st. Slept nearly six hours last night : pulse 90 : skin moist : 

 no pain whatever : his bowels were well moved by the draught : 

 urine passed as the day before, and he sat up about two hours, 

 with his feet hanging over the side of the bed, and resting upon a 

 chair. 



