182 BASIC BODIES. 



obtain taurine, and they found no sulphur in it, although Bensch 

 had detected a small quantity. Doubts have been expressed whe- 

 ther sulphur, and consequently taurocholic acid, exists in human 

 bile, but Gorup-Besanez* has so completely set this point at rest, 

 that my evidence founded on the crystallometric determination of 

 taurine artificially obtained from human bile is superfluous. In 

 diseased bile taken from the dead body taurine is especially found 

 when, as is sometimes the case, the bile has an acid reaction ; thus 

 Gorup-Besanez found taurine in the bile of a person who had died 

 from arachnitis. 



Although some of the products of the decomposition of bile 

 occur in the excrements, especially in cases of diarrhoea, taurine has 

 never yet been found there : neither has it been detected in bilious 

 urine. 



Origin. If we consider that the excreted products of the 

 animal organism are usually highly oxidised organic matters, and 

 that most of the matters separated from the blood and even depo- 

 sited in the tissues, differ from the food in containing a larger 

 amount of oxygen, it must at first sight strike us as singular that 

 a substance so rich in sulphur as taurine either alone or in combi- 

 nation, should be produced, even in the normal state of the body, from 

 the animal fluids, which are almost universally saturated with free 

 oxygen. Although Redtenbacher failed in obtaining taurine artifi- 

 cially, his admirable researches render it highly probable that the 

 sulphur in taurine exists in an oxidised state, as indeed may be 

 inferred from the fact that it cannot be recognised in this substance 

 by means of the ordinary fluid oxidising agents. The genesis of 

 taurine should therefore not be sought in a de-oxidising process in 

 the blood, (a very improbable process,) but rather in a process of 

 oxidation. If, however, taurine be the product of an oxidation, 

 the source of its formation should hardly be sought in the liver, 

 since the blood that is poorest in oxygen is supplied to this organ. 

 This simple induction leads us to refer the seat of the formation of 

 taurine, or at least of its proximate constituents, to the blood, where, 

 however, it cannot be detected for the same reason that so long 

 prevented the presence of urea from being ascertained. Nothing 

 is at present known regarding the different steps that occur in the 

 formation of taurine; it is, however, not improbable that the sul- 

 phur of the albuminous food in its conversion into the elements of 

 tissues, which are either free from or poor in sulphur, yields in 

 part the materials for the formation of taurine. 



* Uiiters. ub. Galle. Erlangen, 1846. S. 31-37. 



