240 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1738. 



not go through a regular dissection ; but only inspected into the intestinum 

 rectum, which he found as above described, and the urinary bladder, which 

 he found very small, and no urine in it ; the child was never observed to make 

 water in a stream whilst it lived, which makes him of opinion, the sphincter 

 vesicae was imperfect. In handling the bladder, he found something sharp 

 pointing to his finger ; he could not discover what it was, till he snipped off 

 the neck of the bladder : he then took out of the bladder a tough kind of sub- 

 stance, about as large as a small fig, in which was a pin with the head on, and 

 very black. 



Of a very extraordinary Calculus taken out of the Bladder of a Man after Death. 

 By the Marquis de Caumont. N° 450, p. 369. 



The Marquis de C. states that he was induced to send to the President of the 

 R. S. the drawing of an uncommon stone, found lately in the bladder of a dead 

 body, which he had engraved in his own presence. It is exactly conformable to 

 the original. The most able physicians, and the best anatomists, assured him 

 that they never saw any thing like it. He can vouch, that the engraving, 

 though very exact, does not come up to this singular work of nature ; the 10 

 branches of which, that spread from the centre, have some resemblance to 

 those of certain plants. It was a matter of difficulty to think, that the system 

 of juxt-apposition, which is employed to explain the successive growth of com- 

 mon stones or calculi, can hold good on this occasion. He dares not however 

 advance, that vegetation has any share herein : though the shape of the 

 branches of the stone, of the canals, or papillae, which seemed destined to 

 convey the nutritious juices, in some measure favoured this hypothesis. He 

 thought proper to join to the figure of the stone, the account of the patient's 

 distemper, in whose bladder it was found ; as Mr. Salien, sugeon of Lisle in 

 the county of Venaissin, sent it to him. The fact, of itself, cannot fail of ap 

 pearing curious. And skilful lithotomists may reap some advantage by it, for 

 perfecting their operations. For allowing the possibility of calculi of a confor- 

 mation somewhat like this, which they may judge of by knowing the bulk ol 

 the stone, they will understand, that in such a case, no other method but that 

 of the high operation can facilitate the extraction of an extraneous body, whose 

 branches cannot fail causing considerable lacerations ; unless they found some 

 favourable circumstances, and that the contexture of it were brittle enough to 

 break it before being extracted. 



1 



