70 Brande on the Medico-Chemical 



position of new matter by the passing urine, until it has acquired 

 a very considerable size. In the fourth section of my Paper, 

 on the differences in the structure of calcuU, I have noticed 

 three cases of this kind, of which the specimens are preserved 

 in the museum of the College of Surgeons. Dr. Marcet 

 (Essay, p, 9.) has also described a similar case, in which the 

 stone was mistaken for a stricture, and of which a representa- 

 tion is given in the fifth plate of his work. • 



Among the most common general symptoms of kidney calcu- 

 lus is the production of a large quantity of mucus, which is 

 often streaked with blood, and sometimes of a purulent aspect. 

 A considerable haemorrhage too not unfrequently attends the 

 passage of a stone into the bladder. 



Such are the chief symptoms that attend the production of 

 a calculus in the kidney, and its passage into the bladder, 

 and they naturally call for certain plans of general treatment 

 which it is not my business here to dwell upon, but which prin- 

 cipally relate to allaying irritation and mitigating pain, as by 

 opium ; by henbane, which is often a most useful medicine, ope- 

 rating as a diuretic narcotic, without producing costiveness; 

 by the warm bath ; by frictions upon the loins by external 

 irritants, excepting always cantharides ; by suppositories or in- 

 jections of opium : I have heard tobacco infusion recommended 

 also as an injection, but should suspect it of mischievous rather 

 than good effect. 



Much of what might have been said respecting the particular 

 treatment of kidney calculi has been anticipated in my former 

 observations, *' on the early Symptoms of Gravel, and on the 

 modes of treating them;" but in the present instance, more 

 promptitude and judgment is required, in consequence of the 

 risk now incurred of the lodgment or formation of a calculus 

 in the bladder. 



The majority of cases, as I have already remarked, are uric, 

 while kidney calculi, properly so called, composed of the phos- 

 phates exclusively, are of extremely rare occurrence : accordingly, 

 having attended to all that relates to the passage and expulsion 



