Lit. | 174 
conceding the same preventive virtue in similar 
medicines and regimen, when the inviting cause 
of deposition has actually taken its unwelcome po- 
\ 
sition in the bladder. In the former case a single — 
difficulty is to be met, the latter two are opposed. 
Antilithics may be equal to overcome the first, and 
be justly esteemed important remedies, though they 
are ineffectually applied to, in order to combat 
the second. For these reasons, and because it — 
seems to me that an unfounded depreciation of val- 
uable remedies and agents, is the natural conse- 
quence in the opinion of a majority of practitioners : 
of an exaggerated attribution of powers, beyond 
what they really possess—I would restrict the defi- a 
nition of antilithics, to the terms of the first two 
sentences of this chapter. Before entering further 
into the discussion of this subject, it may be pro- 
per to observe, that, without a cotemporaneous 
and conjunctive observance of what I would call 
antilithic regimen, mere medicamental antilithics 
cannot avail much. This remark will be found of 
staunch value, when we review the whole field of 
moral, physical and dietetic causes, which conspire 
to generate and perpetuate lithic predisposition. 
These will be noticed in the course of the following > 
outlines of a very difficult and I think in the pre- 
vailing chemico-medical aspect of it, a very ab- 
struse subject. The important and instructive 
bearing of chemical researches and results, on the 
pathology and therapeutics of diseases, is in no 
instance so conspicuously shewn, as in refer- 
ence to calculous taint, but I much fear, like all 
novel and high-wrought theories, the chemico- 
medical treatment of this taint, is pushed some- 
what beyond the line which separates reason 
from misguided zeal, if not infatuation. The in- 
evitable consequence of transcending this limit to 
rational inference and treatment predicted on the 
