Prof. E. D. Smith on Calculous Affections, 301 



among the best services which that science could render to 

 the healing art."* 



In this grand and humane enterprise, omitting the men- 

 tion of inferior names, the genius of a Black was exerted in 

 vain ; and we are now reluctantly compelled to concede 

 that it is hopeless to search for solvents of calculous concre- 

 tions in the living system. But, although the researches of 

 the chemist have, in this instance, failed to discover a reme- 

 dy for a deplorable evil, they have nevertheless produced a 

 great benefit by suggesting the means oi preventing a calam- 

 ity, which they cannot remove when it is once formed. The 

 able experiments and reasonings of Mr. Brande, the pres- 

 ent chemical lecturer at the Royal Institution, London, aided 

 by the practical experience of Sir Everard Home, have 

 greatly elucidated this subject and are calculated to afford 

 much instruction and consolation to the scientific and philan- 

 thropic inquirer. From their investigations, together with 

 those of the philosophers already name<f, it would seem that 

 the components of calculi are often different from each oth- 

 er and that upon their specific nature must depend the 

 use of the preventive remedy. 



Here it is that chemical knowledge is of signal benefit 

 and affords us a clue in a labyrinth, that would otherwise be 

 impervious. A kind providence often furnishes premonito- 

 ry Symplons of threatening dangers, and by a timely atten- 

 tion to these, an impending evil may be averted. Thus it 

 has been ascertained by chemical analysis, that the urine is 

 a very compound fluid, containing both acids and alkalies 

 in various states of combination, but so adjusted as that the 

 whole should present an apparently uniform and homogene- 

 ous mass in the healthy state — by disease, these circum- 

 stances may be altered, and there may be an undue pre- 

 dominance of acid or alkaline matter, both tending to pro- 

 duce calculous concretions and requiring different modes of 

 treatment. Observation has proved that the greater num- 

 ber of these concretions consist of uric acid, principally, 

 while the remainder are formed by certain neutral salts, or 

 earths, which ought to be held in solution by an excess of 

 acid, but are deposited in the bladder in consequence of 

 disease. Happily, before any such depositions take place, 



* See No. 33, 1810. 



