11 & On Gravelly and Calculous Concretions. 



immersion of many calculi in it. For an account of these 

 highly interesting experiments, too numerous for insertion 

 here, I must beg leave to refer to his Treatise De Freroga- 

 tiva Thermarum Carolinanim, ir. dissolrendo Calculo Vesicce, 

 prcB Aqua Calcis vivcB. 



From these experiments, a? well as the highly beneficial 

 effects of these waters, taken internally, by the numerous 

 calculous and gravelly patients who frequent Carlsbad, he 

 establishes their superiority over the different alkaline and 

 other remedies hitherto in use, not excepting Whyte's 

 oyster-shell lime water. Now, the lime in these being car- 

 bonated, and only kept in solution by their highly aerated 

 state, we can be at no loss, in those days, to attribute their 

 superior agency to the alkaline impregnation, assisted by so 

 high a temperature. Klaproih affirms, that a person who 

 drinks these waters, in the usual quantity, for twenty-six 

 days, takes of mild mineral alkali 3913 grains, or 8 ounces 

 1 drachm and 13 grains; which amounts to two drachms 

 and a half per day, besides the other saline ingredients. 



Doctors Rutty and Smyth, who gave us a valuable extract 

 from this publication, in the Memoirs of the Medical and 

 Philosophical Society of this city, (now in the library of the 

 Roval Irish Academy, but which, we have sincerely to regret, 

 were never published, and are now discontinued,) conclude 

 their account by the following query : " May not some al- 

 kaline lixivium be contrived by art, that would possess sl- 

 rnilar effects with these waters r" And has not this partly 

 taken place in the instance of our soda waters ? But may 

 we not make a nearer approximation by a solution of the 

 above specified proportion of mineral alkali in the relative 

 quantity of water, with the addition or omission of the car- 

 bonic acid, and the other saline ingredients, as may be thought 

 proper, afterwards heating, ho'.vever, each separate dose to 

 160 degrees? 



We find, then, the alkaline carbonates, in the great labo- 

 ratory of nature, as well as in our experiments, exerting con- 

 siderable solvent p-owers upon these animal concretions con- 

 trary to v.hat has been hitherto supposed. 



Experiment 



