Apatitic Urinary Calculi From Early American Indians

Ancient urinary calculi have been reported sparingly in the literature. The first known vesical stone was discovered by Elliot Smith among bones of a predynastic Egyptian who lived before 4800 BC.1Indian Sanskrit documents mention suprapubic removal of calculi. These artisans further recognized that broken fragments from a calculus could act as nucleating centers for renewed stone growth. Hippocrates (460-370 BC) identified both renal and vesical calculi. Willams2discovered a bladder stone in the mummy of a basket-maker's grave in Arizona that dated back at least 3,000 years. Smith3analyzed genitourinary-tract calculi from a skeleton in a burial at Indian Knoll, Ky. The present study is concerned with the occurrence of urinary calculi from two midwestern Indian burials in Fulton County, Illinois, and Marion County, Indiana. These two occurrences, as well as those reported in the literature, indicate that early man apparently suffered from urinary-tract diseases similar