

550 M'NEVEN ON THE MINERAL WATER 



be better illustrated, nor these observations more properly concluded, 

 than by a relation of his case. 



Mr. H. laid the foundation of the early eminence to which he has 

 arrived in the profession of the law, to a course of such severe and 

 unremitting study, while a student of Columbia College, as none in 

 that seminary were tempted to exceed ; and such, indeed, as no literary 

 or professional distinctions, fascinating as are these objects, can requite 

 any body for acquiring at the same cost of excrutiating disease. From 

 the age of sixteen he led a remarkably studious and sedentary life, 

 scarcely ever sparing himself time to exercise ; and this train of close 

 application to books, and these long sittings at the desk, may altogether 

 have filled a period of ten or a dozen years, before the disorder they 

 brought upon him was entirely formed. 



Early in the year 1809 he began to feel, when lying down, a sensa- 

 tion of heat in the region of the kidneys. It continued so for some 

 months, was by no means painful, gave no alarm, and barely excited at- 

 tention. But, in the course of the summer of that year, it increased 

 so far as occasionally to make him restless in bed, without being so 

 troublesome as to cause him to mention it to his physician. At last, 

 one night, toward the beginning of autumn, he was attacked, a few hours 

 before day, by a most excruciating pain in the small of the back. 

 Finding himself almost unable to endure it, he sent for his physician, 

 the late Doctor P. who, among other things, directed fomentations to 

 be applied to the part. After suffering, as the patient then thought, 

 most severely for several hours, the pain suddenly subsided ; the relief 

 was as unexpected as the attack, but it left him extremely languid. 



A few days afterward the pain seized him again in the same place, 

 and lasted many hours. Dr. P. then first expressed his apprehension 

 that the disorder was gravel in the kidney. He opened a vein to re- 

 lieve the present symptoms, took away blood freely, and by these means 



