Page 563 - My FlipBook

CALCIFICATION. 573

pleteness of the calculi. But I have not found that they increase at
all after six weeks."
Mr. Rainey has by many and thoroughly scientific tests proven the
analogy between his artificial calculi and those formed in the body.
The lime salts are deposited in both cases in a gelatinous matrix, but
without the forming influence of the specialized cells which we find in
true calcification. The difference between crystallization outside of the
body and crystallization within it is due to the action of the specially-
endowed cells which superintend the deposition of the lime salts.
The lime salts which are deposited in the intercellular substance enter
into some chemical combination with the protoplasm which composes
this intercellular substance, the nature of which is not known ; but it
is not due to any special action of the living protoplasm, as such, for
we find the same apparent characteristics shown where lime salts are
thrown down in albumen or mucilage. The product thus obtained is
insoluble in acids : a portion or all of the lime salts will be given up,
but the matrix will remain.
On this subject INIr. Tomes has written as follows : " The insoluble
salts of lime are altered in their behavior by association Avith organic
compounds—a fact which was first ]>ointed out by Rainey and has
been more recently worked out by Professor Hasting and Dr. Ord.
If a soluble salt of lime be slowly mixed with another solution
capable of precipitating the lime, the resultant lime salt will go down
as an amorphous powder, or, luider some circumstances, in minute
crystals. But in the presence of gelatin, albumen, and many other
organic compounds the form and physical character of the lime salts
are materially altered, and in the place of an amorphous powder there
are found various curious but definite forms quite unlike the character
of crystals produced without the intervention of the organic substance.
Mr. Rainey found that if calcium carbonate be slowly formed in a thick
solution of mucilage of albumen, the resultant salt is in the form of
globules, laminated in structure, so that the globules may be likened to
tiny onions, these globules, when in contact, becoming agglomerated
into a single laminated mass, it ajipearing as if the laminse in immediate
apposition blended with one another. Globular masses, at one time of
mulberry-like form, lose the individuality of their constituent smaller
globules, and become smoothed down into a single mass ; and Mr.
Rainey suggests as an explanation of the laminated structure that the
smaller masses have accumulated in concentric layers which have sub-
sequently coalesced ; and in the substitution of the globular for the
amorphous or crystalline form in the salt of lime when in contact with
various organic substances Mr. Rainey claimed to find the clue for the
explanation of the development of shells, teeth, and bone. At this
point Professor Hasting took up the investigation, and found that other
salts of lime would behave in a similar manner, and that by modifying
the condition of the experiment very various forms might be produced.
But the most important addition to our knowledge made by Professor
Hasting lay in the very peculiar constitution of the ' calcos])herites,' by
which name he designated the globular forms seen and described by
Rainey. That these are built up of concentric lamina9 like an onion