Prof. E. D. Smith on Calculous Affections. 309 
don, has furnished some information of this kind, and it is 
much to be regretted that his materials were so scan 
From his table it appears that out of five hundred and six 
calculous subjects only twenty-eight were females. Upon 
this fact some useful reasoning might perhaps be Sein dec 
The habits of females are, commonly speaking, more seden- 
tary than those of males, and yet it has been generally ad- 
mitted that men, of sedentary lives, are more liable to calculi 
than others ; but may it not be eatin whether in such 
cases the influence of diet has not been too much overlook- 
ed? Is it not a general fact that females are more tempe- 
rate in their diet than males; and again, resorting to the 
analogy with gout, do we not find that the proportion of wo- 
men, affected’ with nes disease, is much less that of 
men? With o calculous complaints, I am aware 
that anatomical reasons would make their occurrence less 
frequent in women than in men; but this difference can 
point account for the vast disproportion, which has been 
observ 
Dr. Maxcatt table shows that nearly one half of the cal- 
culous patients were under fourteen years of age, and that 
these children were only from the poor classes; a strong 
i n favor of the influence of diet in promoting such 
diseases. That the diet of an animal has a  ef- 
feet upon the disposition to produce artediar calculi may 
be inferred from what is stated by Dr. Wollaston, (London | 
Med. and Phys. Jour. Vol. 25) respecting the proportion of 
uric acid found in the excrements of different birds, which 
had been nourished by different kinds of food. From this 
it appears, that those which consumed the most animal mat- 
ter, hintebed the greatest proportion ers uric ra while the 
herbiverous animals race an inconsi qt aris 
conic’ « and oo e of inconvenience, nihee 
chiefly to animal, which i is far more productive of tie welds. 
