INTESTINAL CONCRETIONS. 153 



Taylor describes the concretions containing ellagic acid in 

 much the same manner as Merklein and Wohler. These true 

 oriental bezoars are not only obtained from the intestinal canal of 

 a wild goat inhabiting the Persian province of Chorasan, but also 

 from Babianum cynocephalum. When freshly obtained from the 

 animal, they have about the softness of hard-boiled eggs. 



The concretions consisting of lithofellic acid, probably ori- 

 ginate, according to Taylor, in resinous matters taken in the 

 food. Taylor suggests that this acid should be named resino- 

 bezoardic acid. 



The excrements of birds and serpents which, mixed with the 

 renal secretion, are discharged from these animals through the 

 cloaca, as well as Guano, the Hyraceum or Dasjespis of Hyrax 

 capensis, and the excrements of insects, will be fully noticed when 

 we treat of " the urine/ 5 



BLOOD. 



From the earliest times the blood has been made the subject of 

 the most various hypotheses, which, however, so far harmonized 

 together that they agreed in ascribing to this fluid the most impor- 

 tant share in the maintenance of animal life. Moses, in accord- 

 ance with the views of the ancient Egyptians, like Empedocles, 

 placed the seat of life in the blood. This fluid therefore has in all 

 ages played an important part in the History of Medicine. One 

 might therefore reasonably have expected that the enquirers of 

 modern times would have been in possession of more than suffi- 

 cient empirical supports on which to establish with some degree 

 of completeness a knowledge of this most subtle of all animal 

 fluids ; but unfortunately the methods accessible to earlier investi- 

 gators were so imperfect and their modes of enquiry so widely 

 different from those of the present day, that even the discoveries 

 of the last century have been of little service in enlarging our 

 views on this subject. We need hardly allude to the obstacles 

 opposed by a mere transcendental philosophy based upon vague 

 notions of vitality and vital forces, by a deficient knowledge of 

 physics and even of logic, for when we call to mind, that only three 

 quarters of a century ago oxygen was unknown to the chemist we 

 have at once a ready explanation of the inability which formerly 

 existed of elucidating the great mysteries of animated nature. 

 Even physics which had solved some of the great problems of 



