140 



the irritation of its other contents, but is an essential integral portion 

 of the cystic bile. 



2ndly, That the gall-bladder is not merely a receptacle and reser- 

 voir for the bile, but an organ highly endowed with organic func- 

 tions ; and that the proper secretion of the liver is converted into 

 cystic bile mainly through the agency of its mucous membrane. 



In thus breaking up the surface of an interesting field of research, 

 the writer is fully aware that a great amount of labour must still be 

 expended upon its development ; he would also be understood to 

 regard these experiments merely as expressing the results of non- 

 vital reactions. We can hardly indeed doubt that, under the in- 

 fluence of vitality, acting through the medium of that most import- 

 ant department of the nervous system, the solar plexus, molecular 

 changes, not improbably analogous to or identical with those which 

 we have described, may be carried on with an energy and efficiency 

 which we cannot hope to witness in the laboratory. Professor 

 Clark, of Cambridge, has already suggested the extension of the 

 research to the case of animals which have no gall-bladder, and in 

 which the hepatic secretion is at once poured into the duodenum, to 

 take its part in the process of assimilation. The conjecture may not 

 be far from the truth, that the mucous lining of the intestinal canal, 

 the parotid gland, the pancreas, the kidney, the urinary bladder, has 

 each its specific predestined function to perform ; and that in working 

 out the subject, we may fall upon many a useful fact, many a beauti- 

 ful analogy, and much to supply the wants and alleviate the sufferings 

 of man. 



Thursday the 29th of May having been set apart for the celebra- 

 tion of the Peace, the President announced that the next ordinary 

 meeting of the Society would be held on Thursday, the 12th of June, 



