Patients with kidney or bladder stones “want to die more than liveAmbroise Paré, Les Œuvres, Paris, Gabriel Buon, 1585, 17th book, chap. XXXVI, p. 730.” because of the stabbing pain they endure, according to surgeon Ambroise Paré.
In the hope of being freed from this suffering, patients sometimes resign themselves to a risky surgical extraction, “the Bladder-stone operation”. Composer Marin Marais wrote an original musical setting of this operation (1725).