Modern nephrology confirms a real, narrow mechanism behind alkalis in general: alkali therapy can dissolve an existing pure uric-acid stone by raising urine pH, but has no dissolving action on a calcium-containing stone such as calcium oxalate. A 2013 professional urological assessment attributes this same mechanism specifically to the soap in Stephens’s recipe; no source in this bundle independently confirms her particular undosed preparation achieved therapeutic urinary alkalinization in any patient. Even granting that attribution, it is a genuine kernel of chemistry inside an otherwise unproven universal claim — and also the reason the claim could never have been universal. Uric-acid stones are one type among several; a recipe advertised as dissolving “the stone” in general, with no distinction by stone type, could not have delivered on that promise even on the most favorable reading of its one candidate ingredient.