22 THE SECRETIONS: 



Morbid Bile. 



Our knowledge of the changes that the bile undergoes in 

 disease is still very superficial. 



In persons suffering from dropsy, the bile is stated by Forget 

 to be thinner, and, in persons with diseased liver, thicker, than 

 in the normal state. I examined the contents of the gall- 

 bladder of the woman with icterus, referred to in vol. I, p. 329. 

 I only obtained a small quantity of viscid, dirty yellow fluid, 

 from which alcohol precipitated mucus and albumen. The 

 portion soluble in alcohol yielded, after evaporation, a small 

 quantity of a viscid substance with a sweet rather than a bitter 

 taste. Bizio 1 has analysed a remarkable specimen of bile taken 

 from the gall-bladder of a man who died in a jaundiced con- 

 dition. It was a fluid of a dark-red colour, thick, of a nauseous 

 but not bitter taste, with an odour of putrid fish, and holding 

 in suspension red and black particles. It contained fatty oil, 

 3-972 ; stearin, 8-613 ; green resin, 2-030 ; a yellow, non-nitro- 

 genous, hard substance, soluble in alkalies, in cold hydrochloric 

 acid, and in alcohol, 1*937 ; erythrogen, 4-157 ; dissolved hae- 

 matin, 3-148; a gummy-saccharine extract with colouring 

 matter, 1-978; soluble albumen, 7'282; fibrin, 11-348; phos- 

 phate of soda, 1-340; chloride of sodium, 0-984; phosphate of 

 lime, 1-320; peroxide of iron, 0-532; water, 51-232. 



[Scherer 2 analysed the bile of a man who died in a state of 

 icterus. It was a thick fluid of a blackish green colour, and 

 exhibited under the microscope a large number of pigment-cells. 

 It contained in 1000 parts : 



Water . . . 859-6 



Solid constituents . . 140-4 



Bilin 48-6 



Bilifellinic acid 



Fat 



Bile-pigment 



Salts 



30-5 

 8-6 



44-3 

 8-0 



Not a trace of cholesterin could be discovered in this bile, 



1 Brugnatelli Giorn. di Fisica, vol. xv, p. 455. 

 3 Untersuchungen, &c. p. 103. 



