142 CONTENTS OF THE INTESTINAL CANAL. 



gestible fragments of food,, as vegetable cellular tissue, tendons, 

 skin, &c., occur in the faeces in varying quantities according to 

 the nature of the food, and that the amount of undecomposed bile 

 which is found, is proportional to the rapidity with which the food 

 passes through the intestinal canal. The examination of the pro- 

 perties of the meconium and of the intestinal contents of the foetus 

 generally, is a subject of more importance. 



According to my experience, the small intestine of the human 

 foetus, between the fifth and sixth month, always contains a 

 bright yellow mass, which is either neutral or faintly acid; its 

 ethereal extract consists of margaric and oleic acids and saponi- 

 fiable fat, and when treated with sulphuric acid and sugar, only 

 very gradually yields a purple colour; in the alcoholic extract 

 we may recognise taurocholate of soda, (partly by its rela- 

 tions towards the salts of lead, acids, and alkalies, and partly by 

 the formation of sulphuric acid when treated with potash and 

 nitric acid,) bile-pigment, (although not always to be detected by 

 nitric acid,) and the chlorides of sodium and potassium. Boiling 

 alcohol extracts from the mass, which is insoluble in the cold fluid, 

 a substance which separates on cooling, and in its further reactions 

 is similar to casein or albuminate of soda ; the watery extract 

 contains a substance precipitable only by tannic acid (unaffected 

 by neutral or basic salts of lead or silver), and presents traces of 

 alkaline sulphates. By far the greatest part of the solid materials 

 in these cases (from 89 to 96-g- of the dry residue) consists of 

 insoluble matter, namely, of epithelial structures and mucus. 



The contents of the large intestine of the foetus in and after the 

 seventh month, are almost perfectly similar to the meconium 

 discharged after birth; they constitute dark- coloured, brownish 

 green, almost black, tolerably compact masses devoid of odour, 

 and without any very well-marked taste, but having a strong 

 tendency to decomposition (as also has been observed by Hofle) ;* 

 at an ordinary temperature this substance has, in the course of 

 twenty-four hours, converted spirit of 78'8-g- into acetic acid. As 

 a general rule, I have found the contents of the large intestine, as 

 well as the meconium, acid; occasionally, however, they are neutral; 

 under the microscope the masses are found to consist essentially of 

 epithelium and mucus-corpuscles, the epithelium presenting a beau- 

 tiful green tint; ether extracts a tolerably large quantity of fat, in 

 which, by careful evaporation, the most beautiful tablets of choles- 

 terin may be perceived ; the alcoholic extract forms a greasy 

 * Chem. u. Mikrosk. 2 Aufl. S. 85. 



