Calculus.—This disease must, I think, be regarded as of very rare occurrence in the Landsend. During my residence there I did not meet with a single case; and only three cases are recorded in the Dispensary register in seventeen years, being in the proportion of only 1 in 3000 patients nearly. Similar evidence of the comparative infrequency of the disease was afforded by all the resident surgeons. The older practitioners had met with only one, two, or three cases in the course of a practice of forty or fifty years; none had performed the operation of lithotomy, and I could only hear of one case in which the operation had been performed in the district. Dr. Montgomery, who has resided in this district many years, informs me that he has only met with one case of stone in the bladder, and had been informed of two others; the former patient was a miner, the latter were not. This infrequency of cases becomes the more remarkable, when we consider the isolation of the district, and its remoteness from London or other large towns, whither patients might be transferred for operation. If cases originated here, many of them, at least, would still be found in their native localities, especially among the poorer classes.
In the excellent papers on the Statistics of Calculus, by Mr. Smith, of Bristol, and Dr. Yelloly, of Norwich,[1] much interesting information is given respecting the relative prevalence of calculous disorders in various parts of the kingdom, but little light is thrown on the causes of the difference. If bad sour bread were a cause, this, as we have seen
- ↑ Med. Chir. Trans. vol. 10; Philos. Trans. 1829-30.
