278 DIGESTION. 



mentary mass in that portion of the intestine where the most important digestive pro- 

 cesses commence should be simply excrementitious ; yet this is the view entertained by 

 some experimentalists. In this position of the subject, naturally the first question to 

 decide relates to the excrementitious or recrementitious character of the bile ; or whether, 

 in other words, the bile be separated from the blood simply to be discharged from the 

 body or have some important function to perform as a secretion. An apparently simple 

 method of settling this question has been employed by many experimenters, but with re- 

 sults which are not satisfactory, unless they can be in some way harmonized. Schwann, 

 Nasse, Bidder and Schmidt, and Bernard, whose observations will be more fully consid- 

 ered hereafter, have performed experiments upon animals in which the bile was entirely 

 shut off from the intestine and discharged from the body by a fistula. If the bile be sim- 

 ply excrementitious, it should follow that animals operated upon in this way would not 

 suffer from the discharge of the bile by a fistula and its diversion from the intestine ; but, 

 in all of them, death occurred with symptoms pointing to defective nutrition consequent 

 upon grave disorder of digestion. The same result followed our own experiments on this 

 subject. On the other hand, Blondlot attempts to show that the bile is simply an excre- 

 tion, and that animals thrive and will live for an indefinite period, when the bile is 

 diverted from its natural course and is discharged from the body. 



In the experiments of those who simply closed the ductus communis choledochus, the 

 effects of shutting off the bile from the intestine were modified by the consequent undue 

 accumulation of this fluid in the biliary passages. The only way to obviate this difficulty 

 was to discharge the bile by a fistula, as was first done by Schwann. The first experi- 

 ments reported by Schwann were made upon sixteen dogs and one rabbit. Of these, 

 only six can be regarded as successful ; and, in the others, the animals either died of 

 peritonitis resulting from the operation, or recovered, the fistulous opening into the gall- 

 bladder becoming closed and the communication between the liver and the intestine re- 

 establishing itself. These six animals died, apparently of inanition, respectively, after 

 seven, thirteen, seventeen, twenty-five, sixty-four, and eighty days. In all, except the 

 two animals that lived for sixty-four and eighty days respectively, there was gradual 

 diminution in weight from the date of the operation, notwithstanding that a large quan- 

 tity of food was taken. In the two exceptions, there was first diminution in weight, then 

 the flesh was partially regained, but it subsequently diminished until death occurred. In 

 these six animals, there was every reason to believe that death occurred from the aboli- 

 tion of the digestive function of the bile, and the disturbances in nutrition were very much 

 like those produced by Bernard by destruction of the pancreas. These experiments 

 were confirmed in their essential particulars by Bidder and Schmidt, Nasse, and Bernard. 

 These facts seem to show that the bile is not simply an excrementitious fluid, and that 

 its function, after it is discharged into the intestine, is not only important but absolutely 

 essential to life. The only experiment which is opposed to this view is one reported by 

 Blondlot. 



The experiment by Blondlot was made upon a dog. The fistula was established in 

 the fundus of the gall-bladder, the ductus communis having been tied and a portion ex- 

 sected. Fifteen days after the operation, the animal had become extremely thin, but ate 

 well, and, according to the report of the experimenter, was in perfect health. During all 

 this time, however, he habitually licked the bile, but he was finally prevented from doing 

 this by a muzzle. From the moment when the dog ceased to swallow the bile, the nutri- 

 tion began to improve, and in three months he had recovered the natural amount of 

 flesh. A farther account of this experiment is given by Blondlot in another memoir. 

 The animal, while in perfect health aside from the existence of the fistula, was claimed 

 by the owner, from whom it had been stolen before it passed into the hands of the ex- 

 perimenter. "With the fistula still open, the dog was used by its owner for hunting and 

 lived for five years. At the end of this time it was returned to M. Blondlot, but died 

 while in his possession, two months after. 



