ABNORMAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE FvECES. 149 



the same as is sometimes observed in dysentery and in the 

 intestinal diseases of young children. Bile-pigment and the biliary 

 acids are only rarely to be detected in any quantity in such stools 

 by a chemical investigation ; if, however, we examine a portion 

 under the microscope, we always find distorted blood-corpuscles, 

 some distinctly yellow, and others very pale, together with colour- 

 less cells resembling pus-corpuscles. Hence it hardly admits of 

 a doubt that, in such excrements, the green coloration essentially 

 depends on the blood which is distributed through it ; we find, 

 however, in other secretions which are never accompanied by an 

 effusion of blood, especially in cases of typhus, a green colour, 

 as, for instance, in the pulmonary expectoration, which, even in an 

 ordinary case of pneumonia, very often assumes a colour merging 

 strongly on green, and in which the most beautiful blood-cor- 

 puscles may be detected by the microscope. 



Albumen in a coagulable state sometimes occurs in normal 

 faeces, as has been already mentioned. It is in dysentery that it 

 is secreted in the largest quantity from the intestine ; the dejections 

 in this disease are often so rich in albumen, that, on the addition 

 of nitric acid, or on boiling after neutralization with ammonia, the 

 whole fluid solidifies. Coagulable albumen is also very often 

 found in the pulpy or fluid evacuations which sometimes occur in 

 Bright's disease. It is constantly present in tolerably large 

 quantity in the fluid stools in typhus. In cholera, some coagulable 

 albumen may always be detected in the evacuations from the 

 bowels ; but here, as in the investigation of most albuminous 

 stools, we must neutralize the fluid with acetic acid before boiling, 

 since it generally has an alkaline reaction in consequence of the 

 presence of more or less carbonate of ammonia, or else effect the 

 coagulation of the albumen by nitric acid, alcohol, &c. The 

 quantity of albumen in the intestinal dejections in cholera, is, 

 however, far less than in typhus. 



Epithelial structures occur in the stools in all cases of diarrhoea ; 

 in typhus, cholera, and dysentery, the diarrhoea causes a rapid 

 desquamation of the epithelium, which for the most part hangs 

 together in masses ; indeed, in cholera, we often find the entire 

 epithelial investment of individual villi. 



Mucus- or pus-corpuscles, are seldom entirely absent in the 

 stools in cases of diarrhoea ; they occur chiefly in simple catarrhal 

 diarrhoea; they have sometimes been found in such quantities 

 in the evacuations, that, from the milky appearance they com- 

 municate to the latter, the term chylorrhcea has been applied to 



