INTESTINAL CONCRETIONS. 347 



out of one horse. Their magnitude bears much relation to 

 their number. I had one that measured eight inches in 

 diameter when sawn asunder ; and it weighed forty ounces. 

 Opposed to this, I have possessed numbers not weighing 

 as many grains each. One brought by Trump (a farrier of 

 the 1st Life Guards) to show me (at Hyde Park Barracks, 

 in MajT^, 1843), weighed 21 lbs./ and measured in circum- 

 ference, lengthwise 275 inches, crosswise 25 inches; and 

 was of the hard lamellated description — the ammoniaco- 

 magnesian phosphate. 



A calculus of the same description (viz., hard and lamellated 

 — the ammoniaco-magnesian phosphate), brought to Regent 

 Park Barracks, June, 1851, by the foreman to Trew, coal 

 merchant, weighed 171bs.,^ and measured in greatest circum- 

 ference 26 inches, and in greatest diameter 9. In shape it 

 was a flattened oval. 



In Form and Colour calculi also vary a great deal. 

 Every stone possesses a nucleus of some kind, or central 

 part, around which the calculous matter collects, and this 

 ordinarily regulates the form it is to take. Any hard body 

 the horse happens to swallow may become such nucleus : 

 pebbles, portions of grindstone, grit of any sort, &c. I 

 had a stone in which a horse-nail formed the nucleus, as its 

 external shape, indeed, would have led any one to imagine. 

 Sometimes, however, the shape of the calculus will be de- 

 termined by the place in which it happens to be lodged : 

 many found in the colon are lobulated, like collected dung- 

 balls, from having taken the form of the cells of the gut. 

 Their colour depends, for the most part, upon their compo- 

 sition. The hard stones are generally white, or white 

 streaked with red. The softer ones are dung-coloured, or of 

 a dirty-black hue. 



There are Three Kinds of intestinal concretions. One 

 is hard and exclusively earthy in its composition, bearing 

 much resemblance externally to our common pebble ; though 

 when fractured it is found to be made up of thin fragile 

 strata, arranged after the manner of the several concentric 



' Calculi lose their weight from age, by loss of moisture and desiccation. 



