in the Intestines of living Animals. 39 
come from her, as she walked across the room, which, when ex- 
amined, was found to be fat in a liquid state, which ‘concreted 
when cold. Ever since that, time to the present, she has voided, 
at intervals of ten or fourteen days, the quantity of from one to 
three ounces, sometimes pure, at others mixed with faces ; 
when voided, it has an unusually yellow tinge, and is quite fluid 
like oil. Her appetite is good, as well as her spirits, and her 
flesh firm; her belly rather tumid, but not hard: she is subject 
to occasional griping: her urine natural, and she sleeps well. 
The specimen on the table was procured under circumstances 
which precluded all possibility of deception. 
. These facts, so strongly in favour of the opinion I had taken 
up, led me to devise in what way it might be put to the test of 
experiment. _I tried to extract fat from the contents of the colon 
in different parts of its course, but without success. Failing in 
this mode of obtaining any decisive conclusions, I was led to be- 
lieve the ecxca of birds more favourable for experiments on this 
subject, and had those of a duck examined by Mr. W. Brande 
after the bird had been seven days without an evacuation, This 
confined state of the bowels put the parts nearly under the same 
circumstances as if they were in a diseased state. When the 
ceca were examined, they were found completely distended with 
feces of the consistence of soft clay, so that, when the bags were 
laid open, the contents retained the same form. The intestine 
immediately above the ceca was empty, but the rectum was 
much distended ; its contents were of a softer consistence than 
those of the ceca. ' 
The following is Mr. Brande’s report on this subject : 
<‘ The contents of the ceca were divided into two portions, of 
one drachm each, and comparative experiments were made with 
similar quantities of the contents of the rectum. : 
© Exp. 1, One drachm of the contents of the cecum was 
completely immersed in half an ounce of water, and kept for 
seven days in a temperature varying from 40° to 60°. At the 
‘end of that time, warm water was poured upon it, but no ap- 
pearance of fat could be perceived. 
“ Exp.2. The same quantity of the contents of the caecum 
was immersed in water containing one-fifteenth part of nitric 
acid, and kept under the same circumstances as in the former 
experiment. In seven days, warm water poured upon it sepa= 
rated a portion of oily matter, which conereted when cold, and 
appeared to be one-eighth of the whole mass. 
* Exp. 3. Portions of the contents of the rectum were treated 
in the same way as in Experiments 1 and 2. That in water 
became putrid very rapidly, and showed no appearance of fat. 
The other, in the diluted nitric acid, was more dissolved than in 
C4 Experi- 
