A treatise on the formation, constituents, and extraction of the urinary calculus : being the essay for which the Jacksonian Prize for the year 1833 was awarded by the Royal College of Surgeons in London / by John Green Crosse.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the formation, constituents, and extraction of the urinary calculus : being the essay for which the Jacksonian Prize for the year 1833 was awarded by the Royal College of Surgeons in London / by John Green Crosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE CAUSES OF URINARY CALCULI. Few subjects in medical science are involved in greater obscurity, than the forma- tion of urinary calculi; to enter fully into the causes which immediately give rise to them, or in some degree influence their production, would engross as much space as a single essay ought to occupy, and the subject not being particularly referred to, in the prize-question proposed by the Royal College of Surgeons, I shall make only a few remarks by way of introduction. It is placed beyond doubt, that the great and prevailing source of urinary deposits in the human body is dyspepsia, arising generally from the food being taken in too large a quantity, or its being not sufficiently digestible, leading to the generation of acid in the stomach, and of a superabundance of a peculiar animal substance, the lithic acid, in the urine. Where digestion is perfectly performed, there can be little fear of the formidable malady about to be treated of arising, the rest of the system being healthy. The errors into which pathologists have fallen seem to me attributable to their looking for one cause only of this disease, which generally requires the concurrence of several for its production. It is true that dyspepsia is continually happening, without producing urinary concretions; but it invariably creates some derangement in the excretion of the urine, disposing to their formation: and where dyspepsia is united with other exciting causes, as want of exercise, variable climate, peculiar diathesis, or local disease in some part of the urinary organs, calculous concretions are most liable to arise. The food and drink taken have sometimes a direct influence in producing urinary concretions, independent of dyspepsia, as is found to be the case with B