7l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. j^ANNO 1702, 



of wind and faeces gushed out, and continued to flow till her guts were emptifd 

 of all the matter, which had been so long retained ; after which I ordered her 

 an anodyne clyster, and a composing draught ; and ever since, being several 

 years, she has continued well. 



The substance extracted was round, somewhat oblong, having on it some 

 such impressions, as men's fingers make on wax or plaister. It weighed then 

 10 drachms, now scarcely an ounce; it was 5 inches in circumference; and 

 although it felt, and otherwise appeared a stone, it swam on water. To see 

 the inside, I cut it in two with a knife ; externally it was black, and smooth as 

 if varnished, and no thicker ; next to this thin blackness was a crust of matter 

 like brick, of the thickness of half a crown ; within that appeared a substance 

 resembling paste-board, or chewed paper ; and within that lay a prune or 

 withered plum, with the stone and kernel cut asunder by my knife. Thus all 

 these surprising symptoms, which so long afflicted this poor woman, were oc- 

 casioned by this plum-stone, swallowed so many years before; but how those 

 different accretions were made to it in such a place as the intestines ? how it 

 ceased to torment her at so many and such different intervals ? where it lurked 

 between those fits, and how the pain and tumour observed such exact periods 

 for so many years ; at first every 3 months, and al'terward every 3 weeks ? are 

 questions I am not able to resolve. 



Many authors tell us of various stones ejected by stool, and many of tliem 

 have been found to come out of the gall bladder of persons in the jaundice. 1 

 have seen 2 such, larger than any I have read of, one as large as a pullet's egg, 

 which came from a lady in the operation of a strong cholagogue ; taken for a 

 jaundice, that had resisted many other remedies ; the other of the size of a large 

 nutmeg, voided by the same means from an aged man, languishing under the 

 same distemper ; and both these patients, for many days after those stones 

 came away, evacuated large quantities of choler by stool, and were freed of the 

 disorder. 



That these two stones were generated in the foUiculus fellis or ductus chole- 

 dochus, appears, if we consider the consequence, and that in colour, taste, 

 weight, and shape, they resembled such as are found in those parts on dissection 

 of jaundiced bodies. I once saw near a handful of them taken out of the gall- 

 bladder of the Portugueze ambassador, who died in London, 1679 ; 'i'i<-l ^^^ are 

 lately told by Baglivi, that the famous Malpighi was full of them : they usually 

 are of subcitronous colour, resembling bright myrrh, and seem to be aggregates 

 of small stones, which perhaps are generated singly in the vesicula, and coalesce 

 in the ductus. 



