Abnormalities in meconium of the foetus and newborn.

Aristotle apparently was the first to give the name 'meconium' to the intestinal contents of the foetus. The word 'mecon-arion' means 'from poppy', or 'like opium', suggesting that the ancients believed it to be the substance maintaining the foetus asleep in the uterus! Meconium has interested people for a long time (Davy, 1844; Hymanson and Kahn, 1919), but it is only recently when serologists have sought blood group substances in the mucopolysaccharides of meconium that it has been subjected to serious chemical study. Meconium is a large mass ofmucus consisting basically of water, muco-proteins and mucopolysaccharides (Rapoport and Buchanan, 1950; Buchanan and Rapoport, 1952). This gives it its general physical properties which are more allied to that of plastic substances than to true simple or colloidal solutions. Biliverdin gives meconium its green colour. There are a number of chemical constituents: fats, steroids, urea, enzymes and sugars (Feldman, 1920). In addition it contains 'meconium bodies', light yellow masses, and organized material in the form of keratinized and nucleated squames. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to some changes in the physical properties of meconium apart from meconium ileus, which are of clinical importance. The clinical aspects of many of the cases from which the material for this study was made are described by Zachary (1957) in the next article.