PHysicians have not, perhaps, differed more widely in any thing, than in their opinions of the medicines lately proposed for the cure of the stone. While some imagined, that Mrs. Stephens’s medicines, or soap and lime-water, were in most cases to accomplish a dissolution of the stone; others have been positive, that nothing of this kind was to be expected from them: nay, they have condemned these medicines, when used in large quantities, and long persisted in, as hurtful to the stomach, guts, and urinary passages; and have ascribed the remarkable ease, which they almost always give to calculous patients, to their depositing a calcarious powder upon the surface of the stone, by which it is rendered less hurtful to the bladder. And this opinion seems to have been not a little strengthened, by the great quantity of white sediment observed in the urine of those patients, who have used soap and lime-water in considerable quantities. Now, as I am of opinion, that most of these objections and doubts, concerning the effects of soap and lime-water in the cure of the stone, may be cleared by a candid consideration of Lord Walpole’s case, I shall trouble you with a few remarks, which have occurred to me, in comparing it with the appearances found in his Lordship’s body after death, of which you were so obliging as to send me a particular account. 1. Whatever doubts may have been entertained concerning the cause of Lord Walpole’s complaints, yet it now appears evidently beyond dispute, that they must have been owing, not to a scorbutic corrosive humour in his bladder, as was imagined by some[125], but to stones lodged in it. These stones may possibly have lain there since 1734; for from that time to spring 1747, his Lordship was free of any gravelish complaints, only passing some red sand at times. But at what time soever they may have first arrived in the bladder, in 1747 and 1748 they seem to have acquired such a bulk, or were become so rough or pointed in their surface, as to occasion great pain, frequent provocations to urine, and sometimes bloody urine; especially after any considerable motion. These complaints, however, were soon relieved, by swallowing daily an ounce of Alicant soap, and three English pints of lime-water made with calcined oyster-shells; and from 1748 to 1757 his Lordship was kept almost intirely free from any return of them, except for some months of 1750 and 1751, during which he took only one-third part of the quantity of soap and lime-water above-mentioned[126]. 2. It is highly probable, nay, I think, altogether certain, that the soap and lime-water not only relieved Lord Walpole of the painful symptoms occasioned by the stones in his bladder, but also prevented their increase.