Calculi are very rare. One described by Morton had a brownish yellow
color on its surface, and a white color spotted with green internally;
it had a bitter taste, colored saliva yellow, and melted when heated,
diffusing the odor of musk. It weighed twelve grains and contained 70
per cent. of cholesterin, calcic phosphate and carbonate and the usual
biliary elements.
But if spherical calculi are rare, concretions and casts of the bile
ducts are common, especially in distomatosis. These are of a yellowish,
reddish, greenish or blackish brown, and form granular plates, or
veritable cylindroid casts often firmly adherent to the mucous membrane
of the duct.
In such cases the walls of the encrusted ducts are hypertrophied and
stand out on the back of the liver as white bands diverging from the
portal fissure.
Apart from the usual _symptoms_ of distomatosis no special indications
have been observed.
_Treatment_ is primarily that for distomatosis, to which the general
measures advised for calculi may be added.