ITS USES. 109 



abundant in the serum of the hepatic venous blood, than in that of 

 the portal blood. 



If from these facts we should regard the liver as a seat of for- 

 mation of blood-corpuscles, in which certain residua of this pro- 

 cess are at the same time perfectly eliminated from the blood, and 

 appear in the form of bile in the excretory ducts of this gland, 

 the above-mentioned observations of Bidder and Schmidt would 

 no longer excite our worder. We can easily understand why the 

 biliary secretion does not attain its height until ten hours after the 

 ingestion of food, when we recollect the extreme slowness with 

 which the blood circulates in the hepatic capillaries, and when we 

 consider that the formation or rejuvenescence of the blood-cells 

 would certainly require some time in order that they may attain 

 the perfection they possess when leaving the liver by the hepatic 

 veins, and that the secondary products (the biliary matters) naturally 

 cannot be duly separated till this principal process is almost con- 

 cluded. Hence it need no longer excite our wonder, that during 

 foetal life the liver should possess so relatively large a volume, that 

 the blood of the foetus is far richer in corpuscles than that of 

 adults (Poggiale*), and that even during this period bile is poured 

 into the duodenum, although there is nothing in the intestine to be 

 digested. Assuming this view to be correct, we may further 

 easily understand why, in hepatic affections, and especially when 

 they arise in consequence of metallic poisons (which, as is well 

 known, are most prone to localise themselves in the liver), the 

 number of cells in the blood frequently appears to be considerably 

 diminished. 



If the bile is merely a secondary product of the formation of 

 blood-cells in the liver, we need not wonder that the animals in 

 Schwann's and Blondlot's experiments could live for so long a 

 time without any considerable disturbance of the digestive organs 

 or of the general health ; and if these animals finally died when 

 the bile was completely excluded from the intestine, their deaths 

 might result from unobserved or unsuspected causes, such, for 

 instance, as their licking up the bile, and thus disturbing the gastric 

 digestion : but several of the above-mentioned circumstances show 

 that the bile likewise discharges certain functions in the intestine, 

 which without it are not so rapidly or so perfectly performed; 

 thus, for instance, it promotes the finer disintegration of the fat 

 contained in the food, hinders the chyme from undergoing putrid 

 decomposition, purifies it, and saturates the stronger acids which 

 * Compt. rend. T. 25, p. 198-201. 



