ove it, and by so doing had removed
about an ounce of the calculus. The physician started home for his
forceps, but during the interval, while walking about in great pain,
the man was relieved by the stone bursting through the perineum,
falling to the floor, and breaking in two. Including the ounce already
chiselled off, the stone weighed 14 1/2 ounces, and was 10 5/8 inches
in its long circumference. B. recovered and lived to December, 1883,
still believing that he had another piece of stone in his bladder.

In Holden's "Landmarks" we are told that the operation of dividing the
Achilles tendon was first performed by an unfortunate upon himself, by
means of a razor. According to Patterson, the late Mr. Symes told of a
patient in North Scotland who, for incipient hip-disease, had the
cautery applied at the Edinburgh Infirmary with resultant great relief.
After returning home to the country he experienced considerable pain,
and despite his vigorous efforts he was unable to induce any of the men
to use the cautery upon him; they termed it "barbarous treatment." In
desperation and fully believing in the efficacy of this treatment as
the best means of permanently alleviating his pain, the crippled
Scotchman heated a poker and applied the cautery himself.

We have already mentioned the marvelous instances of Cesarean sections
self-performed, and in the literature of obstetric operations many of
the minor type have been done by the patient herself. In the foregoing
cases it is to be understood that the operations have been performed
solely from the inability to secure surgical assistance or from the
incapacity to endure the pain any longer. These operations were not the
self-mutilations of maniacs, but were performed by rational persons,
driven to desperation by pain.

Possibly the most remarkable instances of extensive loss of blood, with
recoveries, are to be found in the older records of venesection. The
chronicles of excessive bleeding in the olden days are well known to
everybody. Perhaps no similar practice was so universally indulged in.
Both in sickness and in health, depletion was indicated, and it is no
exaggeration to say that about the hospital rooms at times the floors
were covered with blood. The reckless way in which venesection was
resorted to, led to its disuse, until to-day it has so vanished from
medical practice that even its benefits are overlooked, and depletion
is brought about in some other manner.