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question would be, 1st, by obtaining; an accurate knowledge of th<?> 

 constituents of bile; 2nd, by an analysis of lacteal chyle, with a 

 view to the detection in it of the constituents of bile ; 3rd, by 

 ascertaining, if any constituent of bile should be found in the lac- 

 teal fluid, that it is furnished by bile, and not by any chymical or 

 animal process elaborated on the common intestinal material. 

 This is to be ascertained by preventing the entrance of bile into 

 the intestines. Here it will be argued that if bile furnishes any- 

 such property, it is not an essential one, seeing that life has been 

 in various cases continued where the secretion of bile is suspended. 

 But as the analysis suggested, even in these cases has never been 

 made, so it cannot be pronounced that here there is not a de- 

 ficiency of properties or substances necessary to healthy lacteal 

 fluid. Besides, this would be arguing from ai/exception, which at 

 most can never reflect but a dubious light, because it pre-supposes 

 that the analogy is imperfect. A person may live for a month with- 

 out taking any thing but gruel or water, and this may be vomited as 

 regularly as it is taken into the stomach (quod vidimus testamur), but 

 it does not follow that a person in a natural or healthy condition 

 can live a month without better nourishment, even though the pro- 

 gress towards death should not be aided by incessant vomiting, &c. 



8. It will be further observed that if bile contribute any thing 

 towards the constitution of lacteal fluid, it is by a decomposition 

 of itself, since the colouring ingredient of bile, whatever it might 

 be, does not, if we may judge from the absence of its usually per- 

 ceptible effect, enter into the composition of lacteal chyle. 



9. Having, by the analyses we have sketched, determined 

 what changes are produced by bile in the material with which it 

 combines, what changes take place in related constituents as well 

 as in the general mass, what decompositions ensue, what new 

 alliances are formed ; having fully ascertained the changes and 

 processes which take place in consequence of the mixture of bile 

 with the intestinal material; it is next to be inquired concerning 

 the other relations, as those subsisting between the chyle of the 

 intestines and the properties of their structures, in the establish- 

 ment of which the constituents of bile might have some share. 



10. The question more simply stated is this, what is the 

 relation of bile with the vital properties of the intestines? Here 

 again we must recur to our analysis: we cannot ascertain what is 

 to be attributed in this way to the operation of bile, unless we 

 know what takes place without it. We should say also in this 

 instance, in order to understand whether bile concurs with the 

 vital properties of the intestines to produce phenomena, we must 

 first be able to take cognizance of the class or kind of phenomena 

 to which our conjectures relate: having attained this faculty, we 

 have then only to inspect the phenomena which take place under 

 the usual and natural influence of the bile, and afterwards, having 

 tied the bile-ducts, to observe what changes occur upon its priva- 

 tion; and if we wish for further satisfaction, we might repeat the 



