298 SECTION OF STONE. [bOOKJI. 



left behind, is no doubt very trivial, as the bisection 

 of many such stones most amply proves. Want 

 of vigour at the time of its access, and the conse- 

 quent inability to expel the intrusion, appear to be 

 the immediate cause of this otherwise inscrutable 

 disorder. Subsequently, other congenial materials 

 reach the original evil, mostly in the liquid form, 

 and thus add to its size, increase the number of 

 striata, and heighten the danger. The water that 

 is drank by quadrupeds is abundantly impregnated 

 with fit materials for generating calculi : soft river 

 water, and that of turbid pools, convey the softer or 

 earthy particles into the animal's system, whilst 

 that drawn from springs contains the elements for 

 forming stone, as perfect as any geologists find in 

 the strata of our earth. The softer kind of these 

 concretions are found in the blind gut, or ccecum ; 

 the harder, or stony kind, in the other viscera 

 above named. 



Heat is the power that separates these elements, 

 and hardens each additional lamina that has ac- 

 crued, or grown over the preceding, from time to 

 time, as the animal may have been exposed to 

 drink so impregnated. This is visible on the sec- 

 tion of those stones which have been found in 

 horses and other animals, and preserved by the 

 curious, and cut in two by the lapidary. Every 

 such concretion so found, of whatever nature it 

 may be, exhibits in the centre the nucleus or com- 

 mencement of the evil, which proves itself to have 

 been either originally stone, or some soft substance, 



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