THE BILE. 211 



eral salts, fatty matters and cholesterine, occur in other parts of the 

 system, and are supplied to the liver, ready formed, in the blood. In 

 the inferior animals, bile can be obtained, for purposes of analysis, in a 

 state of freshness and purity, from the gall-bladder of the recently 

 slaughtered animal ; but in man it is usually more or less altered in 

 character by remaining in the gall-bladder for some hours after death. 

 It was obtained in a case of accidental biliary fistula in the human sub- 

 ject by Jacobsen, who found that the entire solid ingredients amounted 

 to about 22.5 parts per thousand ; a little over one-third consisting of 

 mineral salts, the remaining two-thirds of organic matters. Sodium 

 glycocholate was invariably present, the taurocholate being less con- 

 stant; and the fluid always contained both bilirubine and biliverdine. 

 The proportions of all the different ingredients, according to the results 

 of his analyses, were as follows : 



COMPOSITION OF HUMAN BILE, ACCORDING TO THE ANALYSES OF JACOBSEN. 



Water . . . .... . 977.40 



C Sodium glycocholate 9.94 



Cholesterine . . . . . 0.54 



Organic I Free fats . .... 0.10 



matters ' Sodium palmitate and stearate . . . 1.36 



Lecithine 0.04 



Other organic matters .... 2.26 



Sodium chloride ..... 5.45 



Potassium chloride ..... 0.28 



Sodium Phosphate 1.33 



Lime phosphate ..... 0.37 



Sodium carbonate ... 0.93 



1000.00 



In ox-bile, as shown by the previous analyses of Berzelius, Frerichs, 

 and Lehmann, the proportion of both mineral and organic ingredients 

 may be very much greater than the above, the biliary salts themselves 

 amounting to 90 parts per thousand. According to Robin 1 they may 

 exist, even in human bile, in the proportion of 56 to 106 per thousand 

 parts. 



Tests for the Biliary Salts. In testing for the existence of bile in 

 other animal fluids, a distinction must be made between those reactions 

 which indicate only the presence of the coloring matters, and those 

 which are appropriate for the detection of the biliary salts proper. The 

 optical properties of bilirubine and biliverdine, already described, and 

 especially the colors produced by the action of nitric acid, constitute a 

 test for these coloring matters alone. They do not indicate the presence 

 of the most essential ingredients of the secretion, which may be con- 

 tained in an animal fluid unaccompanied by the coloring matters, or, on 

 the other hand, may be absent where the coloring matters are to be 



1 Lecjons sur les Humeurs. Paris, 1874, p. 656. 



