The Sun.
London, England, 1829-10-29 00:00:00

RENEWAL OF A 3ICSIC LICENSE.

Mr. ADoLmus applied for the renewal of the
music license of Mr. Mayne, of the Golden Lion,
Smithfield. The license had been granted last year,
and the house had been carefully and most respect-
ably conducted. The last year's license was signed
by Aldermen Sir J. Perring, Ansley, and Fare-
brother, and by the Recorder.
Alderman HEYGATE—There can be no objection
to this, surely. _ _ _

Alderman FAREBROTTIER said he heard an officer
complain against the house, as a night house.
Mr. Mayne said it was opened on the nights of the
markets, but there %vas no music on such occasions.

The Beadle—No notice has been given to the
Alderman of the band. We are taken by surprise
here. The petition has been handed into the Court
within this half-hour.

Mr. ADOLPHUS pleaded hard for the license,
which he at last succeeded in obtaining; but not
until his client had pledged himself to give up the
night business altogether.

TIIE NEW OPERATION FOR STONE.

(From the Medical Gazette.)

TO THE EDITOR.

Stu,—As Baron Heurteloup has allowed me to
read the manuscript of a work on Lithotrity, which
he is preparing for the press, anti it will be some
time before it can be published, I have availed my-
self of his permission to extract such observations
a., in the mean time, I think most likely to afford
information to your readers on this important sub-
ject. With this view, I have much pleasure in for-
warding them to you for insertion in the Gazelle.
I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
Oct. 11, 1829. J. RUTHERFORD ALCOCK.

From the danger and pain of the operation of
lithotomy, scientific men for ages had endea-
voured to find some milder means of relieving
calculous patients. Chemistry and galvanism
were tried in vain, and mechanical means were
resorted to ; but the only success that attended
them was the partial relief of the patient. Some
instruments destined to seize small stones lodged
in the urethra were the only results. The en-
deavour by these means to withdraw stones from
the bladder, when they were very small, some-
times succeeded ; but the idea of crushing stones
by instruments through the natural passage, had
not been put in execution. The belief which
all surgeons entertained of the necessity of an in-
strument being curved to enable it to be passed
into the bladder, was a difficulty which baffled
all their efforts ; for it was impossible to develop
an instrument with this curve that would destroy
calculi, often voluminous and hard.

It was not, then, until it was proved that a
straight sound, three or four lines in diameter,
might be passed, that the attention of surgeons
was more particularly and successfully directed
to finding the means of breaking up stones in
the bladder by aa instrument passed through
the urethra.

Many mechanical combinations formed upon
this principle were the result of their labours;
but, of all these, two only have received the
sanction of experience as fitted for practical
purposes.
The one is that known by the name of" perce
pierre," or " instrument a trois branches," which
was the first employed ; and the other is mine,
noticed by the Institute, and in which I have en-
deavoured to obviate the defects of those which
preceded them, in cases where the calculi were
more than eight lines in diameter.

The art of curing calculous patients, like every
other branch of the science, fell far short of per-
fection in the commencement, and could only be
brought to that state by progressive steps of im-
provement ; it was, therefore, not to be expected
that the first instruments invented should be the
most perfectly adapted to their end.
The means employed might appear very inge-
nious and satisfactory in the first case, and yet,
even while admired, give rise to some ideas for
their improvement, by the observations of defects
or imperfections. Experience would necessarily
suggest amelioration in proportion as new indi-
cations were observed.

It was thus that, after having repeatedly em-
ployed the " perce pierre," I found that this in-
strument became insufficient in proportion as the
stone increased in size, and that, to render litho-
trity applicable to the majority of cases, it was
necessary to devise means of breaking up the
stones more promptly, and with less injury to the
bladder.

A short description will enable my readers to
appreciate the nature and end of the labours I
thought it desirable to undertake, with a view to
enlarge the limited resources of.lithotrity.
The action of the three-branch instrument is
limited to making a perforation each time the
stone is seized of the diameter of the tube intro-
duced in the urethra ; this hole, then, can never
be to the extent of the diameter of the stone,
when it exceeds 10 or 12 lines.

It necessarily follows, that the calculus can
only be broken after having frequently repeated
these inefficient perforations, which can only be
done by allowing the stone to fall to the bottom
of the bladder, in order to re-seize it and pre7
sent the stone in another position for the action
of the perforator.
It will easily be seen, without bringing any
P'
roofs how much this left to be desired, espe-
cially when it was required to break up a stone of
a certain size ; for, to d7,_. it was necessary

to seize the stone in order to perforate it—to
release it—retake it, to make a second hole, and
renew this manwuvre until the body was broken.
After this each fragment was again to be seized,
to submit it. to the crushing process. The con-
sideration of these steps certainly gives the idea
that this instrument is tedious, and often painful
in its application.

I have endeavoured to improve upon this by
means of my own peculiar combinations, and
think I have succeeded in rendering that part of
the operation which consists in breaking the
stones, as simple, prompt, and gentle, as possible.
The stone, seized without difficulty in the blad-
der, and strongly held, is perforated first by a
head, which, at the first attack, makes a hole in
the calculus four lines in diameter. This per-
foration is succeeded, without loosing the stone,
by another stilet, adapted to enlarging the hole
already made. I thus excavate the calculus, the
centre is reduced to powder, and the circumfe-
rence falls into the bladder in the form of a shell,
or excavated fragments.

If we consider that this result (the breaking
up of the stone, effected with the " perce pierre,"
&ter a great number of perforations) is obtained
with this system of excavation, by seizing the
stone once, and submitting it to the action of
the instrument but once ; that during the opera-
tion there is scarcely any movement of the in-
strument, and the breaking up of the stone takes
place in a bladder filled with water previously
injected, and which can be renewed at pleasure,
the advantages resulting from the use of these
instruments, in skilful hands, will be easily ap-
preciated.

To these favourable circumstances must be
added the position of the patient and the steadi-
ness of the instrument, which I obtain by means
of the little bed, or rather a kind of arm-chair,
on which I place the patient, when the volume
of the stone is such as to require the use of the
excavating instruments. On this bed the patient
is seated in a commodious situation, and the in-
strument grasping the stone is fixed in a kind of
vice, which is either moveable or fixed at plea-
sure ; so that, while the operation is going on,
the patient is perfectly unaware of what is pass-
ing ; and this ought evidently to be the case,
since _he instrument does not move, the action
of the stilet being within it, and in the middle of
the water previously injected.

It was for the invention of this instrument for
excavation that the " encouragement" was
awarded to me two years ago by the learned
body which has since conferred upon me the
great prize of surgery for the " important im-
provements" I had further effected in the art of
lithotritv.*

This last improvement is the instrument I
have called brisecoque, and which completes the
set I have constructed in the intention of curing
patients, by means of lithotrity, with the greatest
possible chance of success. The operation of
crushing the stone was certainly rendered less
tedious and fatiguing by its excavation, thus
breaking it up at the first attack ; but there was
more yet to be done.

The result of the excavation I practised was
the reducing the calculus to shell fragments and
powder, which last was immediately voided with
the urine. The fragments, though too large to
pass by the urethra, were reduced to a state in
which the slightest pressure would crush them.
It became of importance to construct some
means of promptly breaking these shells, against
which the excavating instruments were useless.

I first endeavoured to make use of the three-
branch instrument, and employed it in the ter-
mination of the first operations I performed ;
but I remarked that the action of this instru-
ment was slow on stones when entire, and left
much to be desired even in the destruction of
fragments, especially those which were flat and
excavated, resulting from the action of the
" evideur."

I thought that if I had been forced, by the
small diameter allowed for the instruments, to
employ an excavating or progressive action, that,
now I had only fragments to attack, I might,
with advantage, change the system, and replace
the slow and gradual action of a drill by the
more prompt and energetic one of two branches
moved by a peculiar mechanism, so as to break
the fragments as soon as seized.
It was the instrument resulting from this that
I called the brisecoque, as indicative of the use
for which it was destined, and in which I have
succeeded beyond my hopes in combining the
necessary elements for the prompt and perfect
destruction of the stones.

This instrument is, in effect, by the facility
%%ith which it is manoeuvred, the rapidity and
energy of its action, at the same time that its
movements are gentle, far superior to the " perce
pierre " for the destruction of small stones, or
the fragments of large ones ; for its action must
necessarily very much abridge the number of sit-
tings, and the fatigue of the patient ; and, con-
sequently, increase the chance of success.
If I have rendered these details sufficiently
clear to be understood, it will be observed that I
have much abridged the operation ; since, first,
in large stones I have substituted a system of
excavation requiring only one attack, and there-
fore only one seizure of the stone, for a system
of repeated perforation which required several
attacks and searches in the bladder. Secondly,
when small stones were to be destroyed, or frag-
ments of large ones, I have replaced the per-
forating by a grinding system, which, by its
powerful action, reduces the stone to powder
much more quickly, and with less fatigue to the
bladder.

Such are the modifications which I have in-
troduced in the means for crushing calculi. It
was necessary it should be distinctly understood
in what these consisted, for they ought to ma-
terially change the general results of the opera-
tion ; for where the three-branch instrument
would fail, these instruments completely succeed,
which has been already proved by cases.
I have thus then, in augmenting the chances
of cure by lithotrity, by adding to the powers of
the instruments, diminished the number of cases
which will require the operation of lithotomy.
Let us hope that the time will come when the
necessity of this operation will be entirely ob-
viated, and Nl= that disease, Which is with rea-
son lookee upon with dread, will become one of
little consequence, and quite under the command
of our curative means.

* This prize was awarded by the Institute of France,
two years ago, upon the report wade of Baron Heurteloup's
instruments by M. Magendie ; in the name of the Com-
mission formed to decide on the prize of Medicine and
Surgery, founded by M. de Montyon. The Metn6ers of
the Commission were MM. Portal, Boyer, Chaptal, Du-
Dulong, Guyltossac, De Clainville, F. Cuvier, and
Alagendie, Reporter.—(J. R. A.)

On Tuesday a girl named MARIA DRAPER,
attempted to put a period to her existence, by throwing
herself into the Thames, at Blackfi iars-bridge, but she was
prevented by a police officer. She complained of the cruel
treatment of a young man who ha,l deserted her.

DEVON CoUNTY SESSIONS.

(From the Western Times )
IMPORTANT CASE.-MERCHETTI V. THE NEIVTO

MAGISTRATES.
This was an appeal by Joseph Merchetti
the decision of the Magistrates ut the last Licsnal
Session at Newton.

Mr. BIRD stated the case on behalf of the sr,
pellant. This would not be a question of
merely, but in the course of investigation they wow'
have to correct errors in judgment, the knowl ,
of which ought to be diffused; the'r inquiry weodS
be, was Merchetti entitled to have the licence rot
which he applied; and then to ask, who had wee
in the refusal of it. What was the object of the
Act ? To prevent a monopoly, and by enabling °,
to appeal at the Quarter Sessions, to get rid ofloc!
influence. What was Torquay, and what is it
now ? It k but a few years since it was a fishing'
Own; it now is the resort of affluence and rank'
Why should Torquay be an exception to every other
town upon the coast, arid Poulton's be there the
only hotel ? If one only be necessary in Torqua.f.'
why are there so many at Teignmouth ? This apPlr
cation would never have been refused, but that &it
L. V. Palk was the proprietor of Poulton's Hot"
—see the connexion of the Magistrates, and the
fluence that has been used. As to Merchetti, the!
is no objection to him—there was none made to hul
house. Certificates of character are not necessal
here, but I shall produce them. (They Were the°
put in ; but, on the objection of Mr. Crowder, wets
nit admi•ted in evidence.)
Witnesses were now examined in support of the
appeal.
William Hearder stated what took place on Che
hearing before the Magistrates. Captain Pellet
had known Merchetti for a number of years; he
had been a servant to his (Captain Pellew's) father'
Mr. Kitson said, that by courtesy the opinion of the
Magistrates of the neighbourhood was relied on. He
spoke in favour of Merchetti, but said that durr
the public prevented him from granting
No objection was made by any one to his character'
Two years since a new licence was granted by tb:
sane bench to a second hotel, kept by Cockramt
Teignmouth. Torquay is of greater conseque,,„tric°
than Teignmouth. It pays between 200/. and 31fir
oti
a year more assessed taxes than than both East
Virest Teignmouth ; knoxs Merchetti's house, it
adapted for an hotel: he is a confectioner, lir
lodgers, is the best to serve up dinners in the tool'
is the only person—(A laugh)—who has served iiP
dinners and suppers at Poulton's hotel.
Mr. C. Rely deposed to the increase of Tortilla/.
W. Bastick and Mr. Wish deposed to the salve
ficts. his request.

Mr. Lipscombe, of the Marine Hotel, TeiV"
mouth, deposed that it would be decidedly to.tve
public benefit to have a second hotel at Torquay..d
On cross-examination, he admitted that it wool'
be for his benefit also, but that he had a little fella°.
feeling for the public.
Judgment—Let a licence be granted to Merchetti•

At the Michaehnas Ross-shire Head Couril
the Convener submitted to the meeting an application bi
Mr. lieu., the original inventor of steam engine's, for re;
lief from his embarrassments, which the applicant ststeu
to have been brought on in consequence of his appill
his fortune in bringing steam-engines to perfection.
was laid on the table, and as the county could not soy"
themselves, it was strongly recommended to individual be:
ritors to contribute to assist Mr. BELL —lnver. Jostrisa"
FATAL ACCIDENT.—About ten o'clock on
Tuesday morning, as several men were engaged in diggiLlt
out the foundations on the site of the late calamitous s'",
in High Holborn, a large macs of earth and brick-vier.
suddenly gave way, and fell with a tremendous noise, by. It
ing several of the men. With the exception of one,
.01
were speedily extricated without any serious injury;
with the utmost exertion the body of one poor frig':
named Jamas JERROLD. was not got out from bets.,,
the weighty soil which had covered him for nearly an hol'i
when it presented a shocking spectacle, and life •appo7,
to have been extinct some time.

ROBBERY .: COACH PASSENGERS!..!:
The robbery oflengers upon the outside of etlr
coaches is of frequent occurrence. Last evening, shalt
six o'clock, IiOBERTSON, a constable, seeing a fellow svho_,°
he knew to be a bad character getting down from behln
KERRISOWS Tottenham coach, hailed the coachman, 1,17,
pulled up, and a lady named BIRD, who sat on the WO
s at, discovered that her pocket had been picked of all fir/
money it contained, Is. 6d., which she had *aced in it'
fa. payment of her fare. The thief hail for the tint 4
e•caped, but ROBERTSON kept a look-out for him, 014
shortly afterwards found him sounding a gentleman's cos!'
pocket which hung over the back-railing of STARR.SOI;
field cold:. The coachman jumped down, and assitq"
him in securing the thief, who begged to he taken JO!'
the ci.y, where probably he was not so well known. 1.,,,,b14,
request was of course disregarded, and he was taken be'
fore a County Magistrate, where he called himself Jo°
JOHNSON, but he had been well known on former °cc°
sions as JOHN HAYES. He was sent to the treal-mill for
three months, and 4s. 6d., found in his pocket, W$
handed over to the keeper of the prison,. to be ape:
priated towards his support while so industriously employ'

NEWLY INVENTED BRIDGE.—CoI. LOPIChi
of the Board of Engineers, has invented a nt w kind. .
bridge, one of which has been built over the Ohio and BSW
more Rail-road, at its interse tion with the Washings";
road. The Baltimore Gazette gives the following ;
seription of its advantages over the bridges now in use:-
" There is not a single curve used in its construriis;
Every piece of timber which bears a weight bears it itt
direction of the grain; so that there is no spring' ,(
shaking; and you pass over the bridge as if it were
stone. The quantity of timber used in it is comparatie;
small ; and any part of it may be removed, upon ocesei
to replace it, without injury to the structure. Thereto
nut a tenon or mortice necessary, so that the timber is aor
weakened, but employs its whole force for the purpogeo
which it is intended. The bridge is 70 feet in leu_doir
and we see no reason why, with a proportional
in the size of the lumber, a bridge of a similar conAcaihe
tion might not be built of three or four or five time' "
length."—From a Boston Paper.
THE SECOND BOY IN HIS CLASS.--.-11, riy
years ago, a respectable merchant in the neighbourheoup;
Edinburgh died, leaving a widow in opulent ng
stances with a numerous family. A suitable time ha of
passed she accepted the addresses of a valiant Capt,tA
Volunteers. The Captain was a humane and kind "”"
upon the whole, and performed the duties of is eteti
father in a very creditable manner, but he was •
a most boisterous temper, and had contracted •
habit of swearing, which he indulged often 03
minner which would have beck ludicrous• if
had not been horrible; Among his step-children Weal,
little urchin ycleped "SANDIE," who was duly
School when he sprung up to be a proper age. SANots "'-
other qualities about him than a love of letters, and in Psi;
ticular a considerable portion of that juvenile cunning
roguery, mixed with simplicity, which sometimes cherao,
tenses the untutored mind. could always find a
dred things more attractive than a lesson, and was, 0;
sequently, constantly at or near the bottom of his oh',„
which brought him many a volley of oaths from the ye
doubtable Captain. One day, as usual, the step.dad
=tided what place he (SANDIE) now held in his dr, ea
SANDIE, with a very unusual degree of briskness, rePI.IO
that he was a second dux. " Well done," replied fret,
Captain, " thit's a clever fdlow ; you'll be a men Yfoe
And how many are in your class ? ' This was a querpa,
which SANDIE was unprepared. Looking in his
father's face, with an indescribable expression of Outs!
anent and simplicity, he answered, as if the words 10
freeze upon his lips, " just me an' a lassie."

BIRTH.
On the 28th inst. the lady of A. Ad.tir, Esq. ofßev
therton Park, Somerset, of a son and heir.