Cup o'Joe-Egg shells, snails, soap and bladder stones

English surgeon Sir Percivall Pott was the first to link cancer to a specific occupation. In 1775, he noted that chimney sweeps had a high incidence of scrotal cancer, an unusual disease that was later termed, “chimney sweep’s carcinoma.” Eventually studies on animals demonstrated that benzopyrene, a chemical that occurs in high concentration in smoke and chimney soot, was the cause, making benzopyrene the first proven chemical carcinogen. Dr. Pott did not agree with the “heroic medicine” being practiced at the time that aimed to shock the body back to health by bloodletting, purging and sweating. He was critical of many treatments, especially ones based on folklore. That’s why he vigorously attacked Joanna Stephens as “an ignorant, illiberal, drunken, female savage.”
So, who was this woman, the recipient of such a vitriolic verbal assault? Joanna, the granddaughter of a physician, had no formal education but that did not stop her from dabbling in various home remedies. When a close friend died of urinary retention because a stone blocked his urethra, she sought a solution and claimed to have found one in a mixture of charred egg shells, charred snails, soap and various herbs. This came to the attention of David Hartley, a medical practitioner who suffered from stones himself. Out of desperation he tried the “remedy.” It worked, and after collecting evidence from ten other sufferers Hartley became an ardent promoter and published a pamphlet, “A View of the Present Evidence For and Against Mrs. Stephen’s Medicines as a Solvent For the Stone.” This created a demand that Mrs. Stephens recognized as a money-making opportunity. She offered to publicly release the recipe if she were paid five thousand pounds, a staggering amount at the time.
“Gentleman’s Magazine” organized a collection but came up short. Then at Hartley’s urging Parliament agreed to come up with the money if proof could be provided that the remedy worked. Mrs. Stephens arranged for the recipe to be given to the Archbishop of Canterbury who organized a committee of doctors, scientists and politicians to follow four men afflicted with stones who would take the treatment. All four improved, Mrs. Stephens was paid the money, and in 1739 her remedy was published in The London Gazette with the title “A most excellent cure for stone and gravel.” Indeed, it could have worked, at least for some stones. Egg shells and snail shells are made of calcium carbonate that with heat releases carbon dioxide and forms calcium oxide, known as lime. This is an alkaline or basic, substance that when consumed raises the pH of the urine and can help dissolve uric acid stones, one type of bladder stone. Soap is also alkaline, so it could also have contributed, although the added herbs were likely useless. Dr. Pott was right about the problems that plagued chimney sweeps, but calling Joanna Stephens “an ignorant, illiberal, drunken, female savage”without considering the evidence was, well, ignorant.