VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 717 



The consequence of their coming off shows, that they caused the jaundice in 

 those last mentioned persons, by obstructing the channels through which the 

 bile passes from the common receptacle into the duodenum. It may perhaps 

 seem impossible to some, that substances of that magnitude could pass through 

 a meatus so small as the common duct is. But it has been no wonder to me 

 these 20 years, since I dissected a physician of this place, who died of the 

 jaundice, and found the ductus communis large enough to admit my greatest 

 finger. 



The stones which are generated in the guts, are of another sort, and easily 

 distinguishable from the foregoing. Becker, speaking of some stones voided by 

 stool, said he supposed that those stones are generated in the intestines, be- 

 cause they differ from those in the gall-bladder in colour, weight, and figure. 

 Those generated in the gall, cause the jaundice ; those in the guts produce 

 colicy, splanchnic, hypochondriacal pains, and sometimes nephritic; all which 

 vanish when they are ejected 



Snme Instances of other P^'^ons who were hurt by swallowing Plum-stones. By 

 Dr. Shane, Sec. R.S. N° 282, p. 1283. 



The first was a man in Lancashire, who being for many years ill of the colic, 

 and receiving no relief from any medicine, desired he might be dissected after 

 his death, to see what might be the cause of his disease. This was accordingly 

 done, and there was taken out of one of his guts a large ball, 6 inches round, of 

 an ounce and half weight, composed of a spongy matter, which swam in water; 

 and viewed by a microscope, it appeared to consist of very small transparent 

 hairs, or fibres, wrought together, after the manner of the tophus bovinus, 

 found in the maws of oxen. In the middle of it was a common prune or plum- 

 stone, which had been swallowed, and sticking somewhere in the guts, had 

 gathered that substance about it, which resembled the small hairs on the skins 

 of several animals, or the fibres of plants we eat. On cutting it, it was found 

 to^consist of a hairy or fibrous substance, in various layers, over a plum- 

 stone, and seems to be of the same substance with -that mentioned by Mr. 

 Yonge. 



The second instance I saw of these balls, was by the means of Dr. Wm. Cole, 

 who showed me some smaller balls than the two before-mentioned, which had 

 in their centres plum-stones. The person he was consulted for, had the colic 

 to a great degree, and had voided several of them ; they were not so spherical, 

 but of a compressed figure, smooth on the outside, and glazed as some of the 



