Page:Thirty-five years in the East.djvu/110

70 twelve years ago, when I was nursing George. His intention was to buy some oxen, and he took a large sum of money with him, of which he was robbed while in a state of intoxication. When I heard this, continued the woman, it made a very serious impression on me, and I suppose that my baby was also affected with my grief, as I observed on that very day he was unable to pass his urine, in spite of all his exertions, until he was relieved by suction. From that time he enjoyed good health for several months, yet this stoppage came on periodically, that is to say, as often as the stone obstructed the urethra, on which occasion he used to rub the part, stamp with his feet, and cry for help." After this relation she begged my pardon, adding, "one ought to conceal nothing from the doctor. Yet," continued she, " I have still one circumstance to communicate to you ; previously to the operation, my child had the bad habit of wetting the bed ; but he has never done so since."

In the present state of medical knowledge, it is impossible to assert whether the cause of the production of stony concretions be connected with the sensations of the nurse, or whether other circumstances co-operate, as we find snch concretions in different parts of the body, not only in the urethra, urine-bladder, kidneys, and the gall-organs, but also in the stomach and intestines of horses, oxen, goats, &c., as just mentioned. But there is no doubt that they are substances of the animal body. We have in ourselves different mineral substances, and a sickly habit causes them to accumulate. I once found five tolerably large stones pressed in the neck of a bladder to such a degree, that I cannot conceive how the man was able to void one drop of urine. Several cases occurred to me, in which, a few years after the stone had been extracted, new ones accumulated, because the origin of the disease was not eradicated ; and I recommend every operator to combine an internal with an external treatment, the extraction or the crushing of the stone being nothing but a palliative.