LITHOTRITY. 336 LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE. searches in 1817, but did uot perform his first operation till the beginning of 1824, is entitled to be regarded as the discoverer of lithotrity. The instrument by which the disintegration of the stone is effected is introduced in the same manner as a catheter or sound into the bladder, and. after eatching the stone, crusJies it to pieces, the stone being grasped by the blades of LITHOTRITE. the instrument, one blade acting on the other by means of a screw. The small fragments are then washed out of the bladder liy means of a special apparatus, called by Bigelow an evacuator. Great care must be taken that no fragment remains in the bladder, as it would surely form the nucleus of a new stone. The process seems, at first sight, so safe, as com- pared with the operation of lithotomy, that it is necessary to distinguish those eases in which it may be" resorted to and those in which it is contra-indicated. It may be resorted to when the patient is an adult, and the urethra full- sized and healthy, so as freely to admit the pas- sage of the instrument ; it must be avoided in children, in consequence of the smallness of the urethra, and also when there is great irritation and thickening of the bladder; when there is great enlargement of the prostate, which hinders the manipulation of the instrument and the es- cape of the broken fragments of stone; when the stone is of large size, as. for example, of a gresiter diameter than two inches; and when there is reason to believe that the concretion is a mulberry calculus, which, from its extreme hard- ness, cannot readily be broken. LiTHOLAPAXY is the term used to denote an operation by which the fragments of the stone are removed at the same time the stone is crushed. This procedure was made possible by the perfection of the instruments by Bigelow of Boston, Mass., in 1878. Otis, of New York, liav- ing taught that instruments of large size can be introduced safely into the bladder. Consult Gould and Pvle, Cyclopedia of Medicine and Sur- gery (Philadelphia, 1900). LITHUANIA, Itth'ii-a'ni-a (Lith. Letura). A region in Western Europe, which in the ilid- dle Ages constituted an independent realm, and whose history is closely connected with that of Poland, in whose dismemberment it passed to Russia. (See Lithuaxian.s and Litiuaxian Language and Literature.) Lithuania had dif- ferent boundaries at different periods. At the ' time of the partition of the Polish monarchy, at the close of the eighteenth century, it extended from Courland and Livonia on the north to Volhynia and the Ukraine on the south, and from' Poland and East Prussia on the west to beyond the Dnieper on the east. The region in- cluded within these limits, with an area of about 100.000 square miles, is embraced in the govern- ments of Kovno. Vilna. Grodno. Vitebsk. Minsk, Mohilev, and Suwalki (the last in Russian Poland). The country comprised: Samogetia (Kovno) in the northwest; Lithuania proper (the palatinates of Vilna and Troki) in the west; White Russia in the east; Black Russia in the southeast: and Polessic in tlu' soulli. This region was formerly, and is still in great part, covered with forests and marshes, and the soil is very unproductive. The Imperial Forest of Bialo- wicza, comprising a reservation of 350 square miles, is the most famous. The chief rivers are the Dnieper. Pripet, Beresina, Diina, Niemen, and Bug. The inhabitants are Lithuanians, Russians, Poles, and Jews. The early history of Lithuania is verj' obscure. Having no natural boundaries, it Avas anciently subject to constant invasions by its neighbors. But as the Lithuanians had no fortified towns to be captured, and as the woods and marshes were almost impassable, the country remained practically independent. The people were little advanced in civilization and had no central government until the latter part of the Middle Ages. They clung tenaciously to their pagan beliefs and practices, and it was only about the beginning of the fifteenth century that Christianity was established, the nation accept- ing the Roman Catholic faith. Early in the thir- teenth century one of the chiefs, named Ryngold, whose personality is bound up with legend, is represented as having instituted a stable govern- ment; the first clearly historic character, how- ever, is Rvngold's son, Mindove, who reigned over Lithuania till about 1203. At this time the Teutonic Knights were establishing their power in the Baltic regions, spreading Christianity with fire and sword, and the bloody w^ars waged with them are a prominent feature in the early his- tory of the Lithuanian principality. Fierce wars were also carried on against the Russians. Gedi- min (about 131.'5-40) wrested vast territories from Russia, including Volhynia and Kiev. In 13S6 .lagello. Grand Prince of Lithuania, mar- ried Hedvig, daughter of Louis the Great of Poland, and mounted the Polish throne, having been previously baptized. For a hundred years from the time" of .Jagello Lithuania and Poland had .separate rulers, a loose political union exist- ing between the two countries. From 1501 they had a common sovereign, and in 1569 the Diet of Lublin decreed the permanent union of Poland and Lithuania into one commonwealth, to be governed by an elective king. Henceforth the his- tory of Lithuania is that of Poland. ( See .Jagel- LOXS; PoLAXD; Ris.siA.) Consult Schiemann, Russlnnd, I'olen und LivUind his ins lite Jahr- hundert (2 vols., Berlin. lSSO-87). LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE AND LIT- ERATURE. The language and literature of about 2,000.000 Lithuanians, the great bulk of whom live in the Russian governments of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, and Suwalki (the last in Poland). There are about 100,000 in the Prussian Province of East Prussia, and a number have emigrated to the United States. With the Lettic (q.v.) and Old Prussian (q.v.) the Lithuanian con- stitutes the Baltic subdivision of the Balto- Slavie group of the Indo-Germanic family of lan- tniages. The earliest Slavic literary records antedate the oldest Lithuanian records by seven centuries, yet the Lithuanian is more archaic than the Sl"avic in phonology, although in morpho- logical structure it is less primitive. It has long, short, and half-long vowels, of which the Slavic, excepting the Sei-vian and Czech, has no relics. The Lithuanian employs three ac- cents: for short vowels— the grave; for long vowels either the acute to mark a 'falling' tone, e.g. k6-tas, 'steel,' or the circumflex to mark
