MORBID BILE. 23 



which Scherer regards as singular, although, according to 

 Berzelius, it amounts to only -0001 of healthy bile (in the ox), 

 a quantity easily overlooked. The bile-pigment 1 in healthy bile 

 is imponderable ; its amount in this case, as well as that of the 

 solid constituents generally, is enormous.] 



Chevallier 2 found that the bile of a man with scirrhous pan- 

 creas, who died jaundiced, was of a pale greenish yellow colour, 

 evolved a putrid odour, had an alkaline reaction, and a faint, 

 slightly saline taste : it contained a yellow, semi-crystalline fat, 

 green resinous matter, ptyalin, osmazome, soluble albumen, 

 hydrosulphate of ammonia, and phosphate, sulphate, and hydro- 

 chlorate of soda. Chevallier found that the bile of a woman 

 who died from pulmonary phthisis was of a brownish yellow 

 colour, and yielded 2 of dried residue, of which 0-83 was biliary 

 sugar. According to Chevreul, the bile in cases of phthisis 

 contains very little fat. The bile of a woman who died from 

 the effects of syphilis is described by Chevallier as of a dark 

 green colour ; it yielded 20 30 of dried residue, of which 

 one third, or 0-94, was biliary sugar, with resinous and yellow 

 matter. 



Phoebus 3 found that, in persons who died from cholera, the 

 gall-bladder was usually tolerably full, (sometimes to an excess,) 

 and that the bile was rather dark-coloured. According to 

 Hermann, the bile in cholera contains an excess of resin. 



In cases of fatty degeneration of the liver, there is, accord- 

 ing to Thenard, a diminution of the biliary resin, and the bile 

 appears as a mere albuminous fluid, and by the time that the 

 liver contains five sixths of its weight of fat, the bile loses all 

 its original characters. 



Lehmann 4 states that the bile of a dropsical boy developed 

 a large amount of hydrosulphate of ammonia, a circumstance 

 which, in other cases, did not occur even when the bile had been 

 kept for some days. 



1 [Scherer has recently investigated the composition and properties of biliary co- 

 louring matter. A notice of his researches may he found in my Report on the Pro- 

 gress of Chemistry in " The Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences," vol. i, 1845.] 



2 Journ. de Chim. Med., vol. ii, p. 461. 



3 Cholera Archiv, vol. i, p. 399. 



4 Summarium, vol. xii. 1839. 



