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MECONIUM. INTESTINAL CONCREMENT8. 523
Excretin, so named by Marcet, 1
is a crystalline body occurring in human
excrement, but which, according to Hopi’e-Seylek, is perhaps only impure choles-
terin (koprosterin or stercorin?). Excretolic acid is the name given by Marcet
to an oily body with an excrementitious odor.
In consideration of the very variable composition of feces, quanti-
tative analyses are of little value and therefore will be omitted.2
Meconium is a dark brownish-green, pitchy, mostly acid mass without any
strong odor. It contains greenish-colored epithelium cells, cell-detritus, numer-
ous fat-globules, and cholesterin plates. The amount of water is 720-800,
and solids 2S0-200 p. m. Among the solids there are mucin, bile-pigments,
and bile-acids, cholesterin, fat, soaps, traces of enzymes, calcium and magnesium
phosphates. Sugar and lactic acid, soluble protein bodies and peptones, also
leucine and tyrosine and the other products of putrefaction occurring in the
intestine, are absent. Meconium may contain undecomposed taurocholic acid,
bilirubin and biliverdin, but it does not contain any stercobilin. which is con-
sidered as proof of the non-existence of putrefactive processes in the digestive
tract of the fetus.
The coyitents of the intestine under abnormal conditions are perhaps less the
subject of chemical analysis than of an inspection and microscopical investiga-
tion or bacteriological examination. On this account the question as to the
properties of the contents of the intestine in different diseases cannot be thor-
oughly treated here. 3
Appendix.
INTESTINAL CONCREMENTS.
Calculi occur very seldom in the human intestine or in the intestine
of carnivora, but they are quite common in herbivora. Foreign bodies
or undigested residues of food may, when for some reason or other they
are retained in the intestine for some time, become incrusted with salts,
especially ammonium-magnesium phosphate or magnesium phosphate,
and these salts usually form the chief constituent of the concrements.
In man they are sometimes oval or round, yellow, yellowish-gray, or
brownish-gray, of variable size, consisting of concentric layers and
containing chiefly ammonium-magnesium phosphate and calcium phos-
phate, besides a small quantity of fat or pigment. The nucleus ordi-
narily consists of some foreign body, such as the stone of a fruit, a
fragment of bone, or something similar. Sjoqvist 4
has recorded an ex-
traordinary concrement consisting principally of fatty acids and a bile-acid.
In those countries where bread made from oat-bran is an important food,
1
Annal. de chim. et de phys., 59.
1
In regard to these analyses as well as to the feces under abnormal conditions
and to the pertinent literature, see Ad. Schmidt and J. Strassburger, Die Faeces des
Menschen, etc., Berlin, 1901 and 1902.
* See Schmidt and Strassburger, 1. c.
4
Hygiea, Festband, 1908.
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