Baulot, James

, a celebrated lithotomist, was born in 1651, in a village of the bailiwick of Lons-le-Saunier in Tranche Cornte, of very poor parents. He quitted them early in life, in order to enter into a regiment of horse, in which he served some years, and made an acquaintance with one Pauloni, an empirical surgeon, who had acquired a name for lithotomy. After having taken lessons under this person for five or six years, he repaired to Provence. There he put on a kind of monastic habit, but unlike any worn by the several orders of monks, and was ever afterwards known only by the name of friar James. In this garb he went to Languedoc, then to Roussiilon, and from thence through the different provinces of France. He at length appeared at Paris, but soon quitted it for his more extensive perambulations. He was seen at Geneva, at Aix-la-Chapelle, at Amsterdam, and practised everywhere. His success was various, but his method was not uniform, and anatomy was utterly unknown to this bold operator. He refused to take any care of his patients after the operation, saying, “I have extracted the stone; God will heal the wound.” Being afterwards taught by experience that dressings and regimen were necessary, his treatments were constantly more successful. He was indisputably the inventor of the lateral operation. His method was to introduce a sound through the urethra into the bladder with a straight history, cut upon the staff, and then he carried his incision along the staff into the bladder. He then introduced the forefinger of the left hand into the bladder, searched for the stone, which, having withdrawn the sound, he extracted by means of forceps. Professor Rau of Holland improved upon this method, which afterwards suggested to our countryman, Cheselden, the lateral operation, as now, with a few alterations, very generally practised. In gratitude for the numerous cures this operator had performed in Amsterdam, the magistracy of that city caused his portrait to be engraved, and a medal to be struck, bearing for impress his bust. After having appeared at the court of Vienna and at that of Rome, he made choice of a retreat near Besan^on, where he died in 1720, at the age of sixty -nine. The history of this hermit was written by M. Vacher, surgeon-major of the king’s armies, and printed at Besan^on, in 1757, 12mo. ¹

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