Lettre a M. le Cher. Vincent de Kern, premier chirurgien de S. M. I. et R. l'Empereur d'Autriche, en reponse a un ecrit ayant pour titre : Reflexions sur la nouvelle methode de M. M. Civiale et Leroy, pour broyer et extraire les calculs vesicaux.

Paris :: Bechet Jeune, 1827., 1827. Small 8vo. [4], 76 pp. Large folding plate showing the instruments used. Disbound, folding plate present, but separated. INSCRIBED by the author to Docteur Doucet. RARE. Pioneering work on gallstones and lithotomy. This is Civiale's letter in response to Vincent de Kern [Kern, Vincenz, Ritter von, (1760-1829)], first surgeon of SMI and physician to the Emperor of Austria. Jean Civiale (1792–1867) was a French surgeon and urologist, who, in 1823, invented a surgical instrument (the lithotrite) and performed transurethral lithotripsy, the first known minimally invasive surgery, to crush stones inside the bladder without (truncated) having to open the abdomen (lithotomy). To remove a calculus, Civiale inserted his instrument through the urethra and bored holes in the stone. Afterwards, he crushed it with the same instrument and aspired the resulting fragments or let them flow normally with urine. / "After some dispute, credit for the development of the first instrument to break a stone in the bladder of a living patient was given to Civiale. He received an award from the French Academy of Sciences of 6,000 francs in 1826 and the 10,000 franc Montyon Prize in 1887. Opponents of his instrument were labeled by Civiale as "butchers without the necessary delicate touch" who therefore insisted on using the old-fashioned perineal lithotomy." - Didusch Center for Urological History. REFERENCES: Bernstein, Medizinisch-chirurgische Bibliothek, 323; Hirsch II, 28; Wellcome II, 350. (Inventory #: M14412)