ACTION OF THE BILE IN DIGESTION. 363 



ever, lie habitually licked the bile, but was finally prevented 

 from doing this by a muzzle. From the moment when the 

 dog ceased to swallow the bile, the nutrition began to im- 

 prove, and in three months he had recovered the natural 

 amount of flesh. 1 A further account of this experiment is 

 given by Blondlot in another memoir. 2 The animal, while 

 in perfect health, aside from the existence of the fistula, was 

 claimed by the owner, from whom it had been stolen before 

 it passed into the hands of the experimenter. With the fistula 

 still open, the dog was used by its owner for hunting and lived 

 for five years. At the end of this time it was returned to H. 

 Blondlot, but died while in his possession, two months after. 



The important question then to determine was that the 

 bile had been completely shut off from the intestinal canal. 

 An examination of the parts was consequently made, in the 

 presence of a number of physicians and students. On the 

 most minute dissection, it was impossible to find any com- 

 munication between the bile-duct and the duodenum ; and 

 the conclusion arrived at was that the animal had lived for 

 five years without a drop of bile passing into the intestine, 

 and, consequently, that this fluid was useless in digestion. 



The facts obtained by all other observers are in direct op- 

 position to the above experiment. After a number of trials, 

 we succeeded in establishing a biliary fistula in a dog, the 

 operation being followed by no inflammation of the peri- 

 toneum, and notwithstanding that the animal was voracious 

 and consumed daily large quantities of food, it died in thirty- 

 eight days, of inanition. 3 If our own observation and those 

 of other experimenters be correct, it is impossible that an ani- 



1 BLONDLOT, Essai sur les Fonciions du Foie et de ses Annexes, Paris, 184-6, p. 

 55 et seq. 



3 BLOXDLOT, Inutilite de la Bile dans la Digestion proprement dile, memoire 

 complementaire de V Essai sur les Fonctions du Foie, Paris, 1851. 



3 Experimental Researches into a neio Excretory Function of the .Liver. 

 American Journal of the Medical Sciences, October, 1862. The details of this ex- 

 periment will be given further on, when we come to treat of the actual function 

 of the bile in digestion. 



