(J26 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1749. 



must be confessed, that the difficulty and hazard attending the extraction of 

 large stones this way, renders it in some degree imperfect; for though the inci- 

 sion be made to the wish, quite through the prostate, and carried on to the neck 

 of the bladder, if this be the case: (for it often happens otherwise,) as the bladder 

 itself in general is not, nor in all probability can be, wounded in this way of 

 operating, the real aperture after all for the exit of a large stone is so small, that 

 the parts must suffer most violent lacerations, and a train of consequent evils 

 must take place. 



The old method indeed is much more liable to this misfortune, because the 

 parts are torn to pieces by absolute violence, without any previous incision of 

 any consequence, to prepare them for the egress of the stone; and this imper- 

 fection in the operation is so notoriously apparent, and so destructive in fact, 

 that this method is almost universally discarded. 



It would be well if the lateral method was intirely free from this imperfection ; 

 but it is to be feared an impartial inquiry would make it clear, that three-fourths 

 of the accidents which have attended this operation, may truly be ascribed to 

 excessive distensions and lacerations of the bladder; and that those few cases, 

 which have miscarried from a mere symptomatic fever, will probably, on a strict 

 disquisition, affoad a shrewd suspicion, that this very fever itself arose from some 

 violence offered to the bladder, in the forcible extraction of the stone. 



rating in the case of the fistula in ano, as shown in a paper of his published in the Medical Journals, 

 might also be adduced as an instance of the same. 



The character of a physician Dr. Mudge sustained with great respectability. He possessed a liberal 

 enlightened mind, and was distinguished not only for learning, skill, and discernment in his profes- 

 sion, but also for knowledge and judgment in general science. His mechanical turn, joined to his 

 inclination for the study of optics, led him to the improvement of the reflecting telescope. In a 

 paper presented to the Royal Society, and printed in the 67th vol. of the Philos. Trans, he suggested 

 some improvements in the composition of the metals for that instrument, accompanied with a de- 

 scription of a process for grinding, polishing, and giving the true parabolic figure to the great spe- 

 culum; and for this paper the Royal Society adjudged the prize of the gold medal. In discovering 

 the means of this operation. Dr. M. received, what every well-grounded man must receive, in the 

 investigations of nature, or the product of art, the assistance of mathematical learning. For he had, 

 at intervals, acquired a very considerable knowledge of the matliematics in all its branches, and had 

 written a treatise on forces, in great part corrected for publication. It may be further remarked that, 

 for coughs and colds, he was the inventor of the instrument called the inhaler, for introducing warm 

 vapour into the lungs. 



This respectable man died March 26, 1792, at 72 years of age; leaving behind him a most excel- 

 lent character, both as a man and a scholar ; as also a numerous family of sons and daughters, all of 

 singular talents and Conduct, respectable not only in private, but in public life; one having distin- 

 guished himself as a uaval commander; and another, Colonel Mudge, of the Royal Artillery, as an 

 able director of the present national trigonometrical snrvey of Britain; for which honourable office 

 he was selected, at a very early age, by the discerning judgment of his grace the Duke of Richmond, 

 when he so ably filled the office of master general of the ordnance. 



