580 OF SECRETION AND EXCRETION. 



tals, who nevertheless remained in good health to the age of fifteen years, pass- 

 ing her urine from the nipples, and getting rid of fecal matters by vomiting. 

 There are cases, moreover, in which it would seem that the mucous lining of the 

 urinary bladder must have had a special power of secreting urine ; the usual 

 discharge having taken place to the end of life, when, as appeared by post- 

 mortem examination, the kidneys were so completely disorganized that they 

 could not have furnished it, or had been prevented by original malformation, 

 or by ligature of the urethra, from discharging it into the bladder. A con- 

 siderable number of these have been collected by Burdach. 1 In all the older 

 statements of this kind, there is a deficiency of evidence that the fluids were 

 really urinous, urea not having been obtained from them by chemical analysis, 

 and the smell having been chiefly relied upon. The urinous odor, however, 

 when distinct, is probably nearly as good an indication of the presence of the 

 most characteristic constituent of human urine as is the sight of the urea in its 

 separated form. The passage of a urinous fluid from the skin has been fre- 

 quently observed in cases in which the renal secretion was scanty ; and the 

 critical sweats, by which attacks of gout sometimes terminate, contain urates 

 and phosphates in such abundance as to form a powdery deposit on the surface. 

 The metastasis of the Biliary secretion is familiar to every practitioner, as 

 being the change on which jaundice is dependent. It is not, however, in every 

 case of yellowish-brown discoloration of the tissues that we are to impute such 

 discoloration to the presence of biliary matter j and we can only safely do so, 

 when we have at the same time evidence of concurrent disturbance of the 

 biliary apparatus. The urinary apparatus then becomes the principal channel 

 through which the biliary matter is eliminated ; the urine becomes tinged with 

 the coloring principle of bile, being sometimes of a yellowish or orange hue, 

 and sometimes of a brown color with a considerable sediment ; and the presence 

 of the most characteristic constituents of the bile has been determined in the 

 urine. The same result presents itself, when the biliary duct has been arti- 

 ficially obstructed by ligature. Other secretions have been found tinged with 

 the coloring matter of bile : thus the pancreatic fluid has been seen of a yellow 

 color in jaundice ; and the milk has presented not merely the hue, but the 

 characteristic bitterness, of the biliary secretion. The cutaneous transpiration 

 is not unfrequently so much impregnated with biliary matter, as to communi- 

 cate the tinge to the linen covering the skin ; and even the sputa of patients 

 affected with bilious fevers have been observed to be similarly colored, and have 

 be*n found to contain biliary matter. The secretions of serous membranes, also, 

 have been frequently seen to present the characteristic hue of bile; and biliary 

 matter has been detected, by analysis, in the fluid of the pleural and peritoneal 

 cavities. Biliary matter, however, when unduly present in the circulating 

 current, is not removed from it by the secreting organs alone ; for it seems to 

 be withdrawn also in the ordinary operations of nutrition, entering into combi- 

 nation with the solid tissues. Thus, in persons affected with jaundice, we find 

 the skin, the mucous and serous membranes, the lymphatic glands, the brain, 

 the fibrous tissues, the cartilages, the bones and teeth, and even the hair, pene- 

 trated with the coloring matter of the bile, which they must have withdrawn 

 from the blood, and which seems to have a particular affinity for the gelatinous 

 tissues. It is impossible at present to say, however, to what extent the more 

 characteristic ingredients of the bile are thus withdrawn from the blood ; for 

 the presence of its coloring matter cannot by any means be taken as an indica- 

 tion that its peculiar resinoid acids are also incorporated with the normal com- 

 ponents of the tissues. 



1 "Zeitschrift fur Physiologic," torn. ii. pp. 253, 254. 



