698 APPENDIX. 



and covered with aqueous solutions, varying in character and 

 strength to suit the specimen. The best preservative fluids are 

 weak spirit, glycerine diluted with water, solutions of gelatine, 

 creasote, naphtha, &c. The gelatine solution answers very well 

 for the preservation of dumb-bell crystals of oxalate of lime, 

 while the creasote and naphtha solutions are better adapted for 

 the preservation of epithelium, tubular casts, &c. Crystals of the 

 triple phosphate are best kept in aqueous solutions of ammonia ; 

 for cystine dilute acetic acid answers very well. 



Vomited matters consist of articles of food variously altered 

 by the digestive processes, epithelium and mucus from the mouth, 

 fauces, pharynx, oesophagus, and stomach, gastric juice, bile, and 

 the various matters generated in disease. As different portions 

 of vomit contain different ingredients, small portions taken from 

 points considerably separated, should successively be subjected 

 to examination. The various transitions which alimentary sub- 

 stances undergo in the stomach, must often necessarily render 

 the determination of the exact composition of the vomited matters 

 a point of extreme difficulty. 



Starch-granules are often met with in abundance, but some- 

 times so changed as to require the addition of tincture of iodine 

 to detect them. Fig. 423 represents the appearance of starch 

 corpuscles after partial digestion in the 

 FIG. 423. stomach. The epithelium is also frequently 



found to be more or less altered from en- 

 dosmosis, and partial digestion. Yibriones 

 and various species of torulse are also ob- 

 served in vomit. The sarcina ventriculi, a pe- 

 culiar fungus discovered by Mr. Goodsir, in 

 matters ejected from the stomach, has also 

 been observed in the faeces, in the urine, 

 and in an abscess of the lung. The fluid of 

 waterbrash consists mainly of epithelial 

 scales and small oil-globules. In the rice-water vomit of 

 cholera patients numerous flocculi of epithelial cells are found. 

 The coffee-ground vomit appears to consist mainly of the color- 

 ing matter of the blood reduced to a finely granular state 

 and mingled with disintegrated blood-corpuscles. The sedi- 

 ment deposited by the black-vomit of yellow fever upon stand- 

 ing, in all probability is chiefly composed of blood-globules in 

 various stages of disintegration. The epithelial cells of this 

 fluid " vary in respect to their abundance, size, and shape, and 

 while stated by some to have presented themselves in all the 

 specimens examined, they have, in some instances, been found 

 wanting. Of the six specimens reported upon by Dr. Leidy, two 

 were deficient in this particular. The size and shape of these 

 cells, as observed by Dr. Riddell, have already been referred to. 

 In the hands of Dr. Michel, the scaly, columnar, and spheroidal, 

 have, at different times, been plainly made out with their nuclei 



