Since the early days of medicine one concern of doctors has been the removal of kidney stones and prevention of recurrence. Owing to the hesitancy of progress in the prevention of initial stone formation and of relapse, however, removal of stones from the kidney and ureter were developed to highly refined techniques and they formerly accounted for a major proportion of the urological operations performed. In the last few years developments in the treatment of kidney stones have taken a completely different turn. In the majority of cases suit able methods are available to bring about...