THE BILE. 225 



mainder being derived from the hairs which are always contained in 

 abundance in the feces of the dog. That is, not more than one-fifteenth 

 part of the sulphur originally present in the bile could be detected in 

 the feces. It must, accordingly, have been reabsorbed from the intestine. 



A still further corroboration of the reabsorption of the biliary materials 

 from the intestinal canal is furnished by the very careful and ingenious 

 experiments of Schiff, 1 performed in a different manner. This observer 

 found that, in animals provided with a gall-bladder, less pressure is re- 

 quired to make a fluid pass from the hepatic duct into the cavity of the 

 gall-bladder than to force it through the common duct into the intes- 

 tine. Unless, therefore, the pressure under which the bile is secreted be 

 increased, either by distension or by muscular contraction, it passes into 

 the gall-bladder more readily than into the intestine ; and a fistula of the 

 fundus of the gall-bladder, if kept freely open, will be of itself sufficient 

 to discharge all, or nearly all, the secreted bile, without any considerable 

 portion of it reaching the intestine. He demonstrated furthermore that 

 this was really the fact by establishing at the same time, in the same 

 animal, a fistula of the gall-bladder and one of the duodenum. So long 

 as the cystic fistula remained open, either no biliary matters, or only 

 insignificant traces of them, could be detected in the fluids drawn from 

 the duodenum. 



The advantage, for certain purposes, of this method of operating, 

 over that in which the common duct is also tied and obliterated, is that 

 by the last operation the bile is permanently shut off from the intestine, 

 in consequence of which the animal soon passes into an abnormal and 

 enfeebled condition. One of the earliest results of this unhealthy state 

 is a diminution in the daily quantity of bile secreted. On the other 

 hand, by Schiff 's method, so long as the cystic fistula is closed, the bile 

 continues to pass through the common duct into the intestine, thus 

 maintaining the animal in a healthy condition. At any time, however, 

 by opening the cystic fistula and emptying the gall-bladder, the rate at 

 which the bile is secreted may be observed with facility. It has already 

 been mentioned that larger quantities of bile were usually obtained by 

 this than by the older method. 



The observations of Schiff show that by leaving open the cystic fistula, 

 and thus practically diverting all the bile from the intestine, its rate of 

 secretion by the liver is at once diminished, so that even at the end of 

 twenty-four hours, if the influence of digestion be eliminated, it is already 

 reduced to a minimum, and this minimum continues afterward with only 

 insignificant fluctuations. On the other hand, if, in the same animal, 

 the fistula be kept closed for some hours, the quantity of bile soon rises 

 to its normal standard. 



The same observer experimented upon the dog with similar results 

 by making a duodenal fistula, through which he introduced a canula into 

 the orifice of the common bile-duct. This canula had a lateral opening 



1 Archiv fiir die Gesammte Physiologic. Bonn, 1870, p. 598. 



