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Arr. X. Observations on the Effects produced by the Bile, 
in the Process of Digestion, in a Letter to the Editor. 
By B. C. Bronis, Esq., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy 
and Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons, &c. 
Dear Sir, 
I send you a brief history of some experiments relating to 
the uses of the Bile, which I made a few years ago, and which 
I mentioned in my lectures delivered in the Theatre of the 
Royal College of Surgeons during the last spring. They form a 
part of a series of experiments relating to the function of di- 
gestion. I hope on some future occasion to be able to lay the 
rest of the investigation before the public, but it is not in a 
state of sufficient forwardness for me to venture to do so at 
present. E 
Various opinions have been entertained by physiologists re- 
specting the office of the liver. Some have supposed that the 
secretion of bile is merely excrementitious ; others that the 
bile is intended to stimulate the intestine, and to produce a 
ready evacuation of the feeces ; and another opinion has been, 
that the bile is poured out into the duodenum, that it may be 
blended with the chyme, and, by producing chemical changes 
in it, conyert it into chyle. The situation of the liver, con- 
nected as it is in every instance with the upper part of the 
alimentary canal, is unfavourable to the first of these hypothe- 
ses ; but the last is rendered very probable by the circumstance 
of chylification taking place just at the part where the bile flows 
into the bowel. 
In order that I might arrive at some satisfactory conclusion 
on these points, I applied a ligature round the choledoch duct 
of an animal, so as completely to prevent the bile entering the 
intestine, and then noted the effects produced on the digestion 
of the food which the animal had swallowed, either immediately 
before or immediately after the operation. The experiment was 
repeated several times, and the results were uniform. Before 
{ describe these results, it may be proper to make one further 
