Joseph-Frédéric-Benoit Charrière, born Switzerland, 1803-1876, moved with his parents to Lyon as a boy and was apprenticed to a Parisian cutler and surgeons' instrument maker in 1815. In 1820 his master was found drowned in the Seine and the widow accepted the advice "... to appoint to the succession this altogether exceptional young man." He became France's most celebrated surgical instrument maker. In the late 1820's the French surgeon Baron Guillaume Dupuytren (1777-1835) realised the need for specialised instruments and asked Charrière to design and make them. This lithotrite was his early example for dealing with stones in the bladder, and from it was developed the bow-drill. (See Lot 23)