29*2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 170(5. 



Concerning the Jaundice occasioned by a Stone obstructing the Ductus commu- 

 nis bilariuSf which was afterwards voided by Stool. By Dr. Wm. Musgrave, 

 F.R.S. N°306, p. 2233. 



Mr. Harvey, nephew to the physician of that name, showed me a stone, 

 which he voided some years since, by stool ; and which he said came from the 

 ductus communis bilarius. The figure of this stone is oval ; the length almost 

 an inch ; the breadth, or shortest diameter, ^ of an inch : it weighed 59 

 grains, when I saw it; but, at its coming away it was above a drachm in 

 weight; some part of it being rubbed off by frequent handling. The surface 

 is rough, unequal, and divided into several little risings, each about the size of 

 half a vetch, or somewhat less. 



The many strong annular fibres, which appear not only at the orifice, where 

 the ductus communis opens into the duodenum ; but also all along the oblique 

 passage of that duct, between the coats of the intestine, (which passage is, 

 according to Dr. Glisson's measure, about half an inch in length) do, by way 

 of sphincter, keep this end of the ductus communis very straight and close. 

 And besides this straitness of the duct, the two oblique insertions it makes 

 at some distance from the other, through the two outer coats of the duode- 

 num, render it still more difficult, for a substance of any bulk to pass this way. 

 So that, however large the stones may be that are generated in the gall-bladder, 

 the ductus cysticus, the hepaticus, or communis, it is not easy to conceive how 

 a stone, of the magnitude here described, could possibly, through a passage of 

 itself so very narrow, strait, and difficult, be conveyed into the duodenum. 



To prove that this stone was not formed in the alimentary duct, but, large 

 as now it is, had come into it from the ductus communis, Mr. Harvey told 

 me, that before the discharge of this stone, he had the jaundice ; which came 

 suddenly on him, and continued several months, in a severe and most excessive 

 manner: that this jaundice, besides the discolouring of his urine and skin, to 

 a very great degree, and besides loss of appetite, faintness, and many other 

 symptoms, usual in this distemper, was also accompanied with a pain in, or 

 near the stomach: that during the jaundice, his stools were of a white colour, 

 as having very little or no mixture of choler in them : that, travelling under 

 these circumstances, more especially with a constant pain, in his coach from 

 London to Clifton, and soon after to Bath ; he found, a little after his arrival 

 there, that this stone came off by stool; and, together with it, almost a spoon- 

 ful of gravelly matter ; and a considerable quantity of choler, as appeared from 

 the yellowness of the stools: all which happened so soon after he came to 



