471 Terr. 
when they once got there, no matter in how bung- 
ling a manner the operation may have been per- 
formed, that bungling would not deteriorate the 
chemical properties of the injected fluid. When 
there, it ought to act on the stone, if it were en- 
dued with a power on it in the living bladder, 
similar to that it has been proved to possess out of 
it. As to any want of perseverence in these trials, 
neither the character nor zeal of the experimenters 
renders them liable to such animputation. They 
were disheartened because of their failure, and 
their zeal was extinguished because sufficient trials 
rendered it nugatory. But this incapacity for 
accomplishing what they are prescribed to effect, 
of the supposed lithontriptics, is not the only diffi- 
culty presented to the admission of such a class of 
remedies. Not only are innumerable instances 
authentically related of their total inefficiency, but 
well attested facts are not wanting of the rapid 
accresion to the calculus, during the use of lithan- 
triptics. Sir Everard Home mentions the most 
striking examples of the latter fact. One patient 
took alkaline medicine as a solvent for four or five 
ears, and at his death three hundred and. fifty 
ight spongy calculi of different sizes, nearly filled 
the bladder ; another had an increase of the symp- 
toms after taking mild and caustic soda for some 
months, and was obliged to submit to an opera- 
tion, which brought forth a calculus ‘* which was 
surrounded with a coat of triple phosphate one 
tenth of an inch thick, the rest being a mixture of 
uric acid and phosphate.” De Haen’s case of 
palliation and final obliteration of all the symptoms 
of stone, after taking near 3 fourths of a ton of lime- 
water, near 3 fourths of aton of milk, and 17 lbs. Ve- 
netian soap, in the short space of seven months!!! 
—while the calculus still answered to the sound, 
