VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 553 



landscape, having its supposed branches of red and yellow confusedly in- 

 termixed. 



On the Mischiefs arising from Swallowing Plum-Siones. By Dr. IV. Holbrooke 

 of Manchester. With Remarks on the same, by Dr. JVm. Cole. N° 325, 

 p. 28. 



One Crumbleholm came to me, and complained of a great loss of appetite, 

 with scorbutic itch, and at times severe convulsive colics below his navel, all 

 along the hypogastrium. They last not above a quarter of an hour, but often 

 return, and raise tumours the size of a large walnut, which disappear and re- 

 move as the pain shifts. He has been troubled with it some years, and took 

 physic of almost every one he met with; but not in any regular method. I be- 

 gan with mild, emollient, and carminative clysters ; and purged with decoct, 

 sen. gereon. syr. de spin, cervin. et tinct. sacr. In the intervals of the purges 

 I gave Ethiops mineral, with bitter alterative decoctions, made more carmina- 

 tive with rad. zedoar. and casto;*. He was relieved for that time ; his appetite 

 and complexion mended, but presently he was as ill as ever. He then showed 

 me the stones voided by stool, on a slight mercurial purge taken last Easter. 

 On opening one of them, I found he had swallowed either some plum or apri- 

 cot stones, which by their stay in the intestines seemed to be inclosed in the 

 fiEces, as I suppose ; and being dislodged by the purge, came away. Hoping 

 then by stronger evacuations if I could remove any others that might remain, it 

 might tend to his cure, I ordered stronger medicines, but without any further 

 success. 



Dr. Cole on the foregoing case remarks, I suppose these stones to be formed 

 not of adhering excrements, as you seem to think, but in this manner : when 

 the plum-stones happen to be included in a fit glandulous receptacle, I conceive 

 they may come to be thus coated over by the viscous liquor secreted out of the 

 ducts of those glandules, which by long lying there may come to acquire so 

 great a bulk, by the continual appulse of the same liquor. This receptacle I 

 guess to be the caecum, which, though naturally small, may be, as other mem» 

 branous and glandulous parts are, capable of a considerable distension : so that, 

 when by reason of the peristaltic motion of the intestines above, one of the 

 plum-stones by its pointed extremity may happen to be intruded ; the whole 

 may, by the same repeated, though slow motion, dilate the cavity so, that the 

 whole body of the stone may by the same method be still farther and farther 

 protruded, till it come to the farther extremity ; which being shut, must be 

 presumed to detain it there, since it is hard to conceive how it can quickly get 



VOL. V. 4 B 



