The physician started
home for his forceps, but during the interval, while walking
about in great pain, the man was relieved by the stone bursting
through the perineum, falling to the floor, and breaking in two.
Including the ounce already chiselled off, the stone weighed 14
1/2 ounces, and was 10 5/8 inches in its long circumference. B.
recovered and lived to December, 1883, still believing that he
had another piece of stone in his bladder.
In Holden's "Landmarks" we are told that the operation of
dividing the Achilles tendon was first performed by an
unfortunate upon himself, by means of a razor. According to
Patterson, the late Mr. Symes told of a patient in North Scotland
who, for incipient hip-disease, had the cautery applied at the
Edinburgh Infirmary with resultant great relief. After returning
home to the country he experienced considerable pain, and despite
his vigorous efforts he was unable to induce any of the men to
use the cautery upon him; they termed it "barbarous treatment."
In desperation and fully believing in the efficacy of this
treatment as the best means of permanently alleviating his pain,
the crippled Scotchman heated a poker and applied the cautery
himself.
We have already mentioned the marvelous instances of Cesarean
sections self-performed, and in the literature of obstetric
operations many of the minor type have been done by the patient
herself.
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