Re: 29,412 cubic inches of stones.
Ok, I followed you as far as calculating the 90.8 cc of stones. Assuming the stones are spherical is a reasonable simplifying assumption, but probably estimates a little high. Extrapolating from there to 125cc total volume? Probably not outrageously inaccurate.
You lost me on the conversion to cubic inches. 2.54 cm = 1 inch, so the conversion is 125/(2.54^3) = 7.6 cubic inches. The largest single flush, the second one, calculates to 44cc or 2.7 cu in.
If these soap stones were flat then you may be right, but they are not flat. Thus you have to take in to consideration their height and width to determine volume since they are not spheres.
The first flush came out to 52cm, or over 20 inches http://www.convertunits.com/from/cm/to/inches, in length alone (1 "stone" in excess of 2cm, 20 "stones" in excess of 1cm, 40 pea size "stones" that would each be approximately 0.75cm and "loads of gravel". Not counting the gravel we have 2cm+20cm+30cm=52cm in length. And again this does not even account for the "loads of gravel". And again, these soap stones are not flat, nor are they spheres. This also does not take in to account the height and width needed to determine volume. If they were spheres then the height, width and thickness would all be the same, which of course is not the case. So I reduced the expected height and width down to the estimated size, which reduces the expected volume if they were really spheres as some have claimed. For example, if the length, width and height were all the same to make it approximate a sphere then we would have over 8000 cubic inches (20 inches X 20 inches X 20inches) just in the first flush alone:
http://www.math.com/tables/geometry/volumes.htm
"Volume is measured in "cubic" units. The volume of a figure is the number of cubes required to fill it completely, like blocks in a box.
Volume of a cube = side times side times side. Since each side of a square is the same, it can simply be the length of one side cubed.
If a square has one side of 4 inches, the volume would be 4 inches times 4 inches times 4 inches, or 64 cubic inches. (Cubic inches can also be written in3.)"
This one "flush" alone produced well over what the gallbladder itself can hold.
In fact, let's go back to your math above. You said "
The second flush yielded a total length of 71.75cm, or over 28 inches, again not including the "load of gravel". And once again true spheres and true cubes both share the same principle of the same distance from center to outside and the same distance from edge to edge. So it really does not matter if we measure as spheres or cubes since these soap stones really are neither. If we base this on cubic inches and assuming these soap stones are all equal distance as with spheres and cubes we now end up with 21,952 cubic inches of material on the second flush.
Given that this volume is the result of 3 flushes, the stones wouldn't all have to be contained in the gallbladder at the same time, but the gallbladder may not empty completely in one flush, either.
And again, each "flush" produced significantly more than the gallbladder could hold to begin with proving these were not gallstones.
A quick internet search turned up figures for gallbladder volumes ranging from about 25-35cc for normal adults, to as high as 65cc for some obese people. 44cc is within this range.
I'm not saying flushing does or does not work. The jury is still out on that point, as far as I'm concerned. I just hate to see math abused as badly as you have done here.
The total inches of length given by the poster came out to about 49 inches. And as shown previously these soap stones are not really spherical, but rather most are more oblong. So to make it easy I underestimated the height and width of these soap stones to calculate the rough volume, which came out way higher than 7.6 cubic inches based on one "flush". I did it this way since something like 29, 412 irregular inches is not really proper, so I adjusted the measurements down somewhat to make it closer to the actual cubic inches that would have been derived.
But let's say that your calculation was correct for a second. The gallbladder still cannot hold 7.6 cubic inches of real gallstones. Furthermore, all of his "flushes" were done within a very short period of time. Yet, real gallstones are extremely slow to form. They cannot form in a week or two. So we also have to take in to account all of the other "flushes", which brings me back to my original point. The gallbladder cannot possibly hold that many real gallstones proving the "stones" were actually soap stones created from the flush itself.
And I did not even factor in all the sludge he also claimed to have got out, which would further increase the volume.