Gall-stone

or BILIARY CALCULUS. (Med.) The name given to concretions most generally found in the gallbladder. Some of these contain all the materials of the bile, and seem to be nothing more than the secretion thickened. The causes which give rise to them are very obscure. When quiescent, they often occasion no uneasine ; but at times they excite violent abdominal inflammation, absce es, rupture of the gall-bladder, and fatal effusion into the peritoneum. [s. 393]