574 MORBID CONCRETIONS. 



maxillary gland of an elephant which died in the Museum of 

 Natural History in Paris.* It was white, had a lamellated tex- 

 ture, with some few crystals consisting of regular tetrahedrons. 

 Several such calculi were found in the gland ; some of them 

 having an oat seed as a nucleus. They consisted chiefly of car- 

 bonate of lime, but contained also phosphate of lime and some 

 animal matter, which performed the part of a cement. 



CHAPTER IV. 



BILIARY CONCRETIONS. 



HARD bodies sometimes form in the gall-bladder, and in their 

 passage through the hepatic duct, being too large for the capacity 

 of that canal, stop up the passage altogether. These concretions 

 got the name of biliary calculi or gall-stones. They had drawn 

 the particular attention of anatomists, and in 1795 Soemmering 

 published an excellent monograph on the subject, f Poulletier 

 de la Salle discovered the existence of cholesterin in human bi- 

 liary calculi, and in 1785 Fourcroy examined a great number, 

 in order to determine whether they were all of the same nature, 

 or whether, like urinary calculi, they were not occasionally com- 

 posed of different constituents. The investigation was resumed 

 by Thenard in 1806, while occupied with the analysis of bile. 

 He examined gall-stones from oxen and from man.J Several 

 gall-stones were analyzed by John in 1811, by Vogel in 1820, 

 by Lassaigne in 1826, by Joyeux in 1827, and by Bally and 

 Henry, Junior, in 1830. 



Biliary calculi, as far as they have been examined, may be ar- 

 ranged under the four different classes. 



1. The first kind have a white colour, a lamellated structure, 

 and a brilliant crystalline appearance. They are composed of 

 cholesterin. They are generally ovoid, and of the size of a spar- 

 row's egg. Such specimens as I have seen had a yellowish sur- 

 face, but internally were white. In general only one is found 

 in the gall-bladder at the same time ; though to this rule seve- 

 ral exceptions exist. 



* Jour, de Pharm. iii. p. 208. 



j- De concrementis biliariis corporis hvmani. $ Mem. d'Arcueil, i. p. 59. 



