306 
STRUCTURE OF THE LIVER BILE. 
hepatic cells are really included within their extensions (as 
they are within the tubes or follicles of the liver of Inverte- 
brata); or whether the cells lie outside the bile-ducts, in 
immediate contact with the capillary blood-vessels that tra¬ 
verse the lobule, filling up the entire space not occupied by 
them, and transmitting the products of their secretion from 
one to another, until these reach the exterior of the lobule, 
where they find their way into the bile-ducts and are carried 
Fig. 171.— Transverse Section of two Lobules of the Liver; 
Showing the bile-ducts distended by injection ; a a, ramifications of the hepatic 
vein, occupying the centres of the lobules ; b b b, branches of the hepatic 
ducts, which are largest in the space c, between the lobules* and which pass 
towards the centre through d d, the substance of the lobules. 
off by them.—The bile may flow directly, as it is secreted, 
into the intestinal tube (§ 213); but if digestion be not going 
on, so that its presence there is not required, it regurgitates 
into the gall-bladder (fig. 30), which stores it up until it is 
needed. In this reservoir it undergoes a certain degree of 
concentration by the removal of its watery part. 
364. Bile is a yellowish (sometimes a greenish-yellow) 
fluid, somewhat viscid and oily-looking, and having a very 
bitter taste, followed by a sweetish after-taste. It is readily 
miscible with water, its solution frothing like one of soap; 
and it has the power, in common with soap, of dissolving oily 
matters; so that ox-gall is not unfrequently used to remove 
grease-spots from woollen stuffs. The basis of the principal 
ingredient of biliary matter, which constitutes about 5 parts 
in 100 of the secretion, is a fatty or resinoid acid which is 
termed the Cholic; this consists of 49 Carbon, 39 Hydrogen, 
and 9 Oxygen; and it forms, by “ conjugation ” with glycine (a 
