C *4 3 
III. On some alvine concretions found in the colon of a young 
man in Lancashire , after death. By J. G. Children, Esq. 
F. R. S. &c. &c. Communicated by the Society for Pro- 
moting Animal Chemistry. 
Read December 13, 1821. 
I was furnished with the particulars of the following case, 
through the kindness of James Thomson, Esq. of Primrose, 
near Clitheroe. 
John Chambers, aged 19, a carpenter at Clitheroe, in Lan- 
cashire, was in the habit, during the hot weather of July 1814,, 
of refreshing himself whilst at work, by eating a quantity of 
unripe plums, of which, at various times, he ate several quarts, 
and generally swallowed the stones, under the erroneous 
notion entertained by the lower classes in that neighbour- 
hood, that they would assist the digestion of the fruit. A 
fellow workman of Chambers, aged 30, pursued the same 
practice with impunity. Not so the unfortunate subject of 
this communication, who about Christmas began to com- 
plain, but still pursued his occupation and worked, with some 
interruption, till February 1815, when he applied to Mr. 
Coultate, of Clitheroe, for advice, complaining of pain in the 
abdomen attended with diarrhoea. The abdomen on examina- 
tion felt tense but not much enlarged, nor had he any fever- 
ish symptoms. When in the workshop, he used to lean against 
the bench, pressing his stomach hard against it, which, he said, 
