Philosophical transactions, Vol. L. Part I. For the year 1757.: Giving some account of the present undertakings, studies, and labours, of the ingenious, in many considerable parts of the world.Various
History
Philosophical transactions, Vol. L. Part I. For the year 1757.: Giving some account of the present undertakings, studies, and labours, of the ingenious, in many considerable parts of the world.
Various
Science -- Periodicals
From the time I began to use the soap, my gravelish symptoms gradually
abated; but, upon walking two or three miles, I made bloody urine.
However, that symptom gradually abated; and in the year 1743 all the
symptoms of a stone quite vanished, insomuch that I could walk, ride,
or go in a machine, as well as ever.
From February 1739, to July 1743, I took every day five or six drachms
of soap: but after that time I diminished the dose to half an ounce;
and never after had any return of a gravelish symptom, tho’ I still
imagine the stone is not intirely dissolved; for after sitting some
time, I find as it were something come to the neck of the bladder, but
which gives me no uneasiness.
This, Sir, according to the best of my memory, is my case: and if it
can be of any benefit to you, in the cure of this painful disease, it
will give great pleasure to,
Dear Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
Matthew Simson.
Nov. 20th, 1749.
_The Extract from Dr._ Austin’_s Letter to Dr._ Pringle.
[Read April 28, 1757.]
THE Rev. Mr. Simson’s letter to me as written in the year 1749; about
which time he told me, that he had ridden 40 miles in a day, without
any bad symptom ensuing.
In the year 1752 he broke his thigh-bone at the neck; by a fall from
his horse, and continued for six weeks in great pain; but after that
time he grew easier, and was able to put his foot to the ground. One
day, as his servant was helping him to walk across the room, he let
him fall; upon which Mr. Simson felt a severe pain: the broken leg
became then evidently shorter than the other; and by that misfortune
he was confined to his bed for near two years. However, about six
months before he died, he was so well recovered, as to be able to go to
church, and to perform divine service.
About the beginning of May 1756, Mr. Simson was seized with a diarrhæa,
which resisted all medicine, and carried him off in the 83d year of his
age. From the date of his letter to his death he had never discontinued
the use of the soap (except during the time of his last illness), tho’
he had not been troubled with any painful symptom of a stone since the
year 1743.
I obtained leave of his friends to open the body, but found no stone
or gravel in the bladder; that part appearing to be, in every respect,
in a natural state, except at the neck, where the coats seemed to be
schirrous, and were about a quarter of an inch thick.
It is probable, that the stone had been of a softer texture, and more
easily dissolved, than ordinary; otherwise five or six drachms of soap
taken daily, even for so long a time, could not have dissolved it
intirely; for many have used that medicine in much larger doses, and at
the same time have drank lime-water plentifully, without obtaining such
effects; tho’ all their painful symptoms were removed by that course,
as Dr. Whytt has shewn in his treatise on this subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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