EXCRETORY FUNCTION OF THE LIVER. 279 



cumulate in the blood when their formation in the liver is 

 disturbed. The researches of Bidder and Schmidt and others 

 have shown that although we cannot detect the biliary salts 

 in the blood or chyle coming from the intestine, these princi- 

 ples are not discharged in the faeces. 1 All of these facts point 

 to an important function of the bile as a secretion. It is true 

 that it is discharged constantly, but during digestion its flow 

 is very much more abundant than at any other time. It is 

 pretty well established that during the intervals of the flow 

 of the secretions, the glands are manufacturing the materials 

 of secretion, which are washed out, as it were, in the great 

 afflux of blood which takes place during what has been 

 called the functional activity of the gland. Now if the liver, 

 in addition to its function as a secreting organ, be constantly 

 forming bile for the purpose of eliminating an excremen- 

 titious matter, it is to be expected that the bile would always 

 contain a certain proportion of its elements of secretion. 



The constant and invariable presence of cholesterine in 

 the bile assimilates it in every regard to the excretions, of 

 which the urine may be taken as the type. Cholesterine 

 always exists in the blood and in certain of the tissues of 

 the body. It is not produced in the substance of the liver, 

 but is merely separated from the blood by this organ. It 

 is constantly passed into the intestine, and is discharged, 

 although in a modified form, in the faeces. We know of no 

 function which it has to perform in the economy, any more 

 than urea, or any other of the excrementitious principles 

 of the urine ; and we have shown, in the memoir already 

 referred to, that it accumulates in the blood in certain cases 

 of organic disease of the liver and gives rise to certain symp- 

 toms of blood-poisoning. 



Origin of Cholesterine. Cholesterine exists in largest 

 quantity in the substance of the brain and nerves. It is 

 also found in the substance of the liver probably in the 



1 See vol. ii., Digestion, p. 374. 



