Our serial studies from 1970s on chemical composition, structure determination and formation mechanism of gallstones were reviewed. The chemical component investigation of brown-pigment gallstone demonstrated that it consists of macromolecules such as proteins, glyco-proteins, polysaccharides, bilirubin polymers and pigment polymers, and biomolecules such as cholesterol, bile salts, calcium salts of carbonate, phosphate, fatty acids and bilirubinate as well as various metal ions. The binding of metal ions with bile salts and bilirubin plays important roles in gallstone formation, i.e., calcium bilirubinate complex is the major constitute of brown-pigment gallstones, and copper bilirubinate complex is critical in the black color appearance of black-pigment gallstone. The cross section of many gallstones exhibits a concentric ring structure composed of various small particles with a fractal character. This is nonlinear phenomenon in gallstone formation. A typical model system of metal ions-deoxycholate (or
