On Gravelly and Calculous Concretions. 35 



eight hours, in four ounces of lime water : temperature as' 

 before. After being dried, was found to have lost sevea 

 grains three quarters; and the surface to be covered with a 

 granular efRorescence, which, in drying, detaches itself. The 

 calculus was so much softened as to leave little doubt of 

 Its entire destruction by a fev,' more immersions. It was 

 again suspended for a month, in the same quantity of lime 

 Water, in the ten)perature of the atmosphere only, without 

 any renewal of the menstruum ; when it was found to have 

 lost twenty-four grains. Now, if the lime water had been 

 frequently renev> cd, and its energy assisted by the standard 

 heat of the hr.maa body, no doubt but it would have been 

 entirely broken down in a much shorter time. We find, 

 then, lime water not only preventing the separation of uric 

 acid from urine, but acting powerfully upon it in its most 

 compact form. How well founded, then, were the experi- 

 ments of Whyte, as well as the opinion of Dr. Smyth; and 

 how little deserving the latter the obloquy of his contempo- 

 raries for his predilection to it ! Now this result, corre- 

 sponding also with Scheele's, points it out to us as one of 

 our most safe and active agents, when injected into the blad- 

 der with the necessary precautionSi And we must feel sur- 

 prised that no attempts of that kind have been made since 

 the time of Whyte. 



Experiment VII; 



A fragment of calculus, of the uric acid kind, weighing 

 seventy-nine grains and a quarter, was suspended, for forty- 

 eight hours, in a mixture consisting of four ounces of di- 

 stilled water and twenty-five drops of the weak aqua kali 

 puri of the shops, which merely gave it an alkaline taste. 

 It was then placed on a sand heat; temperature varying oc-* 

 casionally from 60 to 100 degrees. Alter being taken out, 

 and dried, it wi^ighed seventy-four grains and three quarters; 

 so that the loss amounted to four grains and a half. This 

 weak lixivium, it appears, then, operated upon it, acquired 

 A yellow colour, a sweet taste, and precipitated, with a few 

 drops of muriatic acid, a white sediment, easily recognizable 

 C2 ' by 



