RAPID LITHOTRITYOR LITHOLAPAXY, ITS LATER IMPROVEMENTS AND ITS PRESENT CONDITION

Lithotrity at one sitting, as planned and developed by Prof. Bigelow, has revolutionized the treatment of vesical calculus. Those most familiar with this method will agree with me that it is destined not only to supersede the slow lithotrity, but to abolish lithotomy itself in forty-nine fiftieths of the adult cases. I have now performed this operation eighteen times with only one death, though the patients averaged nearly sixty years of age, and the stones were mostly very large. In one of the successful cases the crushed fragments weighed two ounces and five drams, and the patient was about 70 years of age. No such success could have been obtained by cutting on such unpromising cases. Passing by as irrelevant the unpleasant personal controversy between Prof. Bigelow and Sir Henry Thompson, a few words are proper respecting the newly coined word, litholapaxy. By the laws of literature, Prof. Bigelow is