MECONIUM. 455 



lowish in the lower portion, and is of a dark-greenish color 

 in the colon. The dark, pasty, adhesive matter, which is dis- 

 charged from the rectum soon after birth, is called the meco- 

 nium. 



The meconium appears to consist of a thick, mucous secre- 

 tion, with numerous grayish granules, a few fatty granules, 

 intestinal epithelium, and, frequently, crystals of cholesterine, 

 this occurring, according to Robin and Tardieu, in about two 

 out of five specimens. The color seems to be due to granula- 

 tions of the coloring matter of the bile. 1 According to Dalton, 

 none of the biliary salts can be detected in the meconium by 

 Pettenkofer's test. 3 The constituent of the meconium which, 

 in our own observations, we have found to possess the great- 

 est physiological importance, is cholesterine. Although but 

 few crystals of cholesterine are found on microscopical ex- 

 amination, the simplest processes for its extraction will re- 

 veal the presence of this principle in large quantity. In a 

 specimen of meconium in which we made a quantitative 

 examination, the proportion of cholesterine was 6*245 parts 

 per 1,000. It is a significant fact, that the meconium con- 

 tains cholesterine and no stercorine, the stercorine, in the 

 adult, resulting from a transformation of cholesterine by the 

 digestive fluids, which are probably not secreted during intra- 

 uterine life. 



None of the secretions concerned in digestion appear to 

 be produced in utero^ and it is also probable that the true 

 biliary salts are not formed at that time ; but we know that 

 the processes of disassimilation and excretion are then active, 

 and the cholesterine of the meconium is the product of the 

 excretory action of the liver. The relations of cholesterine 

 as an excrementitious principle have already been very fully 

 discussed. 3 



1 RODIN ET TARDIETT, Memoire sur Vexamen microscopique des taches formees 

 par le meconium et Venduit fatal, Paris, 1857, p. 21, et seq. 



2 DALTON, Human Physiology, Philadelphia, 1871, p. 668. 

 8 See vol. iii., Excretion, p, 267, et seq. 



