220 THE BILE. 



bladder, without tying the common biliary duct. While the average 

 quantity obtained in Bidder and Schmidt's experiments on the dog was 

 0.832 grammes of fresh bile per hour for every kilogramme of bodily 

 weight, in those of Schiff it was 1.3 to 3.2 grammes per kilogramme per 

 hour. 



Since in the human subject the processes of digestion and nutrition 

 resemble those of the carnivora, rather than those of the herbivora, the 

 former should be selected to serve as a term of comparison in estimating 

 the probable daily quantity of the bile in man. If we apply accordingly 

 to the human subject the average of the results obtained by Bidder and 

 Schmidt from the cat and dog, the entire quantity of bile, for a man 

 weighing 65 kilogrammes, would be a little over 1 100 grammes per day. 

 Ranke 1 obtained from direct observation a result not essentially different 

 from this. He collected at various times the bile discharged in a case 

 of biliary fistula in a man weighing only 47 kilogrammes, and found the 

 average quantity for twenty-four hours to be 652 grammes; the max- 

 imum quantity for the same period being .945 grammes. In a man of 

 65 kilogrammes' weight this would correspond, for the average, to 902 

 grammes, and for the maximum to 1307 grammes. The entire quantity 

 of bile, therefore, for a man of medium size, is evidently not far from 

 1000 grammes per day. This contains about 30 grammes of solid ingre- 

 dients. 



Decomposition of the Biliary Matters in the Intestine. Observers 

 generally are agreed that the biliary salts, though constantly poured 

 into the upper part of the intestinal canal, are not discharged with the 

 feces. Although traces of them are sometimes to be found in the evacua- 

 tions, they are always very far from representing the total quantity pro- 

 duced by the liver, and as a general rule they disappear altogether in 

 their passage through the intestine. This may be readily demonstrated 

 by experiments upon dogs, which are conducted in the following man- 

 ner. The animals are to be fed with fresh meat, and then killed at 

 various intervals after the meals, the abdomen opened, ligatures placed 

 upon the intestine at various points, and the contents of its upper, 

 middle, and lower portions collected and examined separately. The 

 results thus obtained show that, under ordinary circumstances, the bile, 

 which is quite abundant in the duodenum and upper part of the small 

 intestine, diminishes in quantity from above downward, and is not to be 

 found in the large intestine. The entire quantity of the intestinal con- 

 tents also diminishes and their consistency increases, as we approach 

 the ileo-csecal valve ; and at the same time their color changes from a 

 light yellow to a dark bronze or blackish-green, which is always strongly 

 pronounced in the last quarter of the small intestine. 



If the contents of the small and large intestine be furthermore evapo- 

 rated to dryness, extracted with absolute alcohol, and the alcoholic solu- 

 tions precipitated with ether, the quantity of ether-precipitate being 



1 Grundziige der Physiologie des Menschen. Leipzig, 1872, p. 284. 



