DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0150
128
PARTICULARS OF STONE-EATERS.
make them rattle as if they had been in a bag. On this,
he caused a ladder to be set against a wall, and hung the
patient up by the hams, with his head downward. When
he was in this posture, he told Sir Charles that the stones
had got up into his stomach ; but being set down upon
his feet, in a very little time the stones were plainly heard
to drop down one after another.
When he lay in bed, the stones would sometimes get
up almost to his heart, and give him great uneasiness:
at such times he was obliged to rise upon his knees, or
stand upright, when he could hear them drop, and he
always reckoned above one hundred. He was so disabled
by these stones, that he could not work, but with pain,
and he felt the same at night. He had been under the
hands of several quacks, but all the medicines they em-
ployed could never bring from him a single stone.
Dr. Sloane mentions a fact of a similar kind, from his
own knowledge.—Mr. Kingsmill, for several years, made
a practice of swallowing nine stones at a time, and that,
once every day, without any injury. They were nearly
as large as walnuts, roundish and smooth, and he found
that they always passed ; at last, however, he died sud-
denly.
A much more remarkable circumstance is recorded by
Mr. Boyle, in his Experimental Philosophy, of a man who
not only swallowed stones, but who actually lived on no-
thing else. “ Not long ago,” says Mr. Boyle, “ there was
here in England, a private soldier, very famous for digest-
ing of stones ; and a very inquisitive man assures me that
he knew him familiarly, and had the curiosity to keep in
his company twenty-four hours together, to watch him,
and not only observed that he ate nothing but stones in
that time, but also that his grosser excrement consisted
chiefly of a sandy substance, as if the devoured stones had
been in his body dissolved and crumbled into sand.”
What
PARTICULARS OF STONE-EATERS.
make them rattle as if they had been in a bag. On this,
he caused a ladder to be set against a wall, and hung the
patient up by the hams, with his head downward. When
he was in this posture, he told Sir Charles that the stones
had got up into his stomach ; but being set down upon
his feet, in a very little time the stones were plainly heard
to drop down one after another.
When he lay in bed, the stones would sometimes get
up almost to his heart, and give him great uneasiness:
at such times he was obliged to rise upon his knees, or
stand upright, when he could hear them drop, and he
always reckoned above one hundred. He was so disabled
by these stones, that he could not work, but with pain,
and he felt the same at night. He had been under the
hands of several quacks, but all the medicines they em-
ployed could never bring from him a single stone.
Dr. Sloane mentions a fact of a similar kind, from his
own knowledge.—Mr. Kingsmill, for several years, made
a practice of swallowing nine stones at a time, and that,
once every day, without any injury. They were nearly
as large as walnuts, roundish and smooth, and he found
that they always passed ; at last, however, he died sud-
denly.
A much more remarkable circumstance is recorded by
Mr. Boyle, in his Experimental Philosophy, of a man who
not only swallowed stones, but who actually lived on no-
thing else. “ Not long ago,” says Mr. Boyle, “ there was
here in England, a private soldier, very famous for digest-
ing of stones ; and a very inquisitive man assures me that
he knew him familiarly, and had the curiosity to keep in
his company twenty-four hours together, to watch him,
and not only observed that he ate nothing but stones in
that time, but also that his grosser excrement consisted
chiefly of a sandy substance, as if the devoured stones had
been in his body dissolved and crumbled into sand.”
What