VESTIGIAL PARTS. ~ 67 
This large ceecum is a favourite situation for intestinal 
concretions. These concretions are of different kinds, 
but they all agree in having a foreign body, such as a 
button, nail, hair-pin, or stray piece of metal for a 
nucleus, around which mineral salts in crystalline form 
are deposited in successive layers until the stone attains 
great weight—five or six kilograms is not uncommon, 
and a stone weighing twenty kilograms is preserved in 
the museum of the Royal Veterinary College, London. 
Hairs from the animal’s skin not infrequently form 
the bulk of such concretions, and may be found in the 
stomach of many ruminants, especially calves; but 
attention is mainly directed to the cecum. The larger 
calculi do not give rise to such dangerous effects as the 
smaller, for their weight and size keep them confined to 
the cecum, whereas the smaller calculi may leave this 
portion of the alimentary canal, and getting into 
narrower channels obstruct the bowel and induce death. 
Apart from the special inconvenience caused by a 
large colon favouring the production of calculi, there is 
another aspect under which we may study such a 
question. The more remote parts of the body are from 
the heart the more likely are they to suffer, if from any 
cause the quantity of the blood in the body is dim- 
inished, or the power of the heart fails. For instance, 
aman suffers severely from typhoid fever, the action of 
the heart is weakened, and maintains the circulation 
with difficulty; as a result the toes, situated at the ex- 
treme limits of the circulatory system, do not receive 
sufficient blood, and mortify in consequence. The 
following is an instructive case taken from a young 
