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.

In the foregoing cases it is to be understood that the operations have been performed solely from the inability to secure surgical assistance or from the incapacity to endure the pain any longer.

These operations were not the self-mutilations of maniacs, but were performed by rational persons, driven to desperation by pain.
Possibly the most remarkable instances of extensive loss of blood, with recoveries, are to be found in the older records of venesection.

The chronicles of excessive bleeding in the olden days are well known to everybody.