500 DIGESTION. 



cases a large quantity of crystals has been observed which consist chiefly 

 of magnesium soaps or sodium soaps. Hemmorrhage in the upper parts 

 of the digestive tract yields, when it is not very abundant, a dark-brown 

 excrement, due to ha?matin. 



EXCRETIN, so named by MARCET,* is a crystalline body occurring in human 

 excrement, but which, according to HOPPE-SEYLER, is perhaps only impure choles- 

 terin (koprosterin or stercorin?). EXCRETOLIC ACID is the name given by MARCET 

 to an oily body with an excrementitious odor. 



In consideration of the very variable composition of feces, quanti- 

 tative analyses are of little value and therefore will be omitted. 2 



Meconium is a dark brownish-green, pitchy, mostly acid mass without any 

 strong odor. It contains greenish-colored epithelium cells, cell-detritus, numer- 

 ous fat-globules, and cholesterin plates. The amount of water is 720-800, 

 and solids 280-200 p. m. Among the solids there are mucin, bile-pigments, 

 and bile-acids, cholesterin, fat, soaps, traces of enzymes, calcium and magnesium 

 phosphates. Sugar and lactic acid, soluble protein bodies and peptones, also 

 leucine and tyrosine and the other products of putrefaction occurring in the 

 intestine, are absent. Meconium may contain undecomposed taurocholic acid, 

 bilirubin and biliverdin, but it does not contain any stercobilin, which is con- 

 sidered as proof of the non-existence of putrefactive processes in the digestive 

 tract of the fetus. 



The contents of the intestine under abnormal conditions are perhaps less the 

 subject of chemical analysis than of an inspection and microscopical investiga- 

 tion or bacteriological examination. On this account the question as to the 

 properties of the contents of the intestine in different disease cannot be thor- 

 oughly treated here. 3 



Appendix. 



INTESTINAL CONCREMENTS. 



Calculi occur very seldom in the human intestine or in the intestine 

 of carnivora, but they are quite common in herbivora. Foreign bodies 

 or undigested residues of food may, when for some reason or other they 

 are retained in the intestine for some time, become incrusted with salts, 

 especially ammonium-magnesium phosphate or magnesium phosphate, 

 and these salts usually form the chief constituent of the concrements. 

 In man they are sometimes oval or round, yellow, yellowish gray, or brown- 

 ish gray, of variable size, consisting of concentric layers and containing 

 chiefly ammonium-magnesium phosphate and calcium phosphate, besides 

 a small quantity of fat or pigment. The nucleus ordinarily consists of 

 some foreign body, such as the stone of a fruit, a fragment of bone, 

 or something similar. In those countries where bread made from oat- 



1 Annal. de chim. et de phys., 59. 



2 In regard to these analyses as well as to the feces under abnormal conditions 

 and to the pertinent literature, see Ad. Schmidt and J. Strassburger, Die Faeces des 

 Menschen, etc., Berlin, 1901 and 1902. 



5 See Schmidt and Strassburger, 1. c. 



