104 BILE. 



undergo putrefactive decomposition ; at all events, it has been found 

 (by Frerichs) that, after tying the ductus choledochus, the contents 

 of the intestines of animals thus operated on"becam completely 

 putrid; and the same thing has sometimes been observed in patients 

 with jaundice. In these cases Frerichs found in the bowels the 

 substance yielding a rose-red colour with nitric acid, which was 

 discovered by Bopp amongst the putrefactive products of albumi- 

 nous bodies. No great weight, should, however, be attached to 

 this circumstance, in so far as the digestive process is concerned, 

 since (as has been shown in the experiments of Schwann and 

 Blondlot) animals in whom the ductus choledochus was tied, and 

 whose bile escaped externally by an artificial fistula, lived and 

 discharged normal excrements for months. 



The view brought forward by H. Meckel, that bile converts 

 sugar into fat, has been refuted by several experimenters, and is no 

 longer supported even by Meckel himself. 



He digested bile with sugar, and after the digestion he found 

 more ether-extract in the bile than in bile not digested with sugar. 

 The cause of the error may be easily perceived : ether-extract is not 

 fat ; the metamorphosis of the bile with its mucus is promoted by 

 sugar, for the non-nitrogenous resinous acids (which are not 

 insoluble in ether) are then formed more rapidly and in larger 

 quantity than when sugar has not been added. 



Prout is of opinion that the digested protein-bodies are con- 

 verted by the bile into coagulable albumen, and Scherer* has made 

 an ingenious experiment by which he thinks he has confirmed this 

 view; lastly, Frerichsf has repeatedly seen filtered chyle become 

 coagulable on the addition of bile and the application of heat. 

 These experiments, although not the slightest doubt can be cast 

 upon their accuracy, cannot be quite convincing, since it is, at all 

 events, objectively difficult to prove that, on the one hand, the 

 whole of the albumen which already existed, and was only pre- 

 vented from coagulating, was previously removed from the chyme, 

 and that, on the other hand, the turbidity of the mixed fluid was 

 not dependent 011 the decompositions and reactions of individual 

 substances, but on true coagulation of albumen by heat or of 

 casein by acetic acid. I treated the purest peptones of albumen, 

 fibrin, and casein which I could prepare, with bile and other reagents, 

 but failed in obtaining a substance coagulable by heat or acetic 

 acid, although I modified the experiment in numerous ways. 



* Ann. d. Ch. u. Pharm. Bd. 40, S. 9. 

 t Op. cit., p. 836. 



