Did you know a soldier removed his own bladder stone in 1782

Bladder stones affect approximately 10% of the population in industrialised countries, increasing their incidence between the age of 40 and 60. The non-invasive procedure currently used to destroy these hardened masses is known as lithotripsy and was first performed in the 18th century by someone who practiced it on himself. 

The first scraping for bladder calculus

Claude Martin was a soldier who spent much of his life working for the British East India Company. His military success became so great that he ended up as the richest European in India. Among his many hobbies, he was known for his interests in science and medicine.  

In 1782, Claude developed the symptoms of a bladder stone and decided not to visit a doctor, as the operation usually performed in such cases was extremely painful and could leave serious after-effects.  

Instead, this soldier designed a homemade instrument with a knitting needle and waxed threads and a whalebone shaft, which he inserted into the urethra to scrape out the stone, bit by bit, in different interventions. He did this for six months, several times a day, until the symptoms disappeared. And, in the light of his success, he sent details of the operation to the London Company of Surgeons.   

Half a century later, French surgeons created an instrument very similar to Claude’s to perform transurethral lithotripsy at Necker Hospital in Paris, although they were apparently unaware of this achievement. Today, shock waves are often used to disintegrate stones in the kidney and parts of the ureter.