CHAP. V.] THE ACTION OF THE BILE ACIDS ON PROTEIDS. 353 



requisite for the proper exercise of the digestive activity of the 

 pancreatic juige. 



Our knowledge of the reactions which occur when the bile comes 

 in contact with an acid chyme is derived mainly from the writings 

 of Klihne 1 and of Hammarsten* and from the more recent researches 

 of Maly and Emich 3 . The principal results will here be sum- 

 marised. If bile, which has been freed from its mucoid nucleo- 

 albumin by treatment with alcohol, be added to a mixture made by 

 digesting egg albumin in artificial gastric juice, a precipitate occurs, 

 which is composed partly of a heavy flocculent body and partly of 

 a finely granular body which it is hard to separate by filtration. The 

 former is a compound of a proteid with bile acids; the latter is com- 

 posed essentially of bile acids mixed, perhaps, with a small quantity 

 of albumoses. The flocculent precipitate to which we have referred, 

 and which was formerly spoken of as containing syntonin, doubtless 

 does not usually contain acid albumin, but the body which Meissner 

 termed Parapeptone, and Kiihne Antialbumat (see pp. 115 and 120). 



The amount of the two precipitates produced depends greatly upon 

 the acidity of the digestive mixture, upon the composition of the bile 

 which is added and upon the quantity of salts which may be present. 

 There are, for instance, specimens of ox bile which are precipitable 

 when treated with dilute acids, and others which are not; the former 

 contain relatively very little taurocholic acid, the latter much more. 

 When the former are mixed with bile at the temperature of the 

 body, a precipitate is thrown down ; if the liquid be filtered and 

 cooled, a fresh precipitate forms which is sometimes so abundant as 

 to give to the liquid the consistence of a magma. When the bile is 

 rich in taurocholic acid this precipitation does not occur, or the pre- 

 cipitate at first produced is readily dissolved on adding more bile 

 (see p. 296). 



Although, as a result of Hammarsteu's researches, it was shewn 

 that the precipitate produced by adding bile to acid chyme was 

 partly proteid in nature and partly composed of bile acids, 

 accurate information was wanting as to the exact power which the 

 two principal bile acids possess of precipitating : firstly, native 

 albumins : secondly, albumoses : thirdly, peptones. Experimenting 

 with solutions of the pure bile acids or their salts, and mixing with 

 them solutions of native albumins, and of albumoses and of peptones 

 as pure as it was at that time possible to obtain them, Maly and 

 Emich obtained the following interesting results: 



First. Taurocholic acid (or a mixture of an alkaline tanrocholate 

 and an acid) precipitates native albumin or acid albumin at least as 



1 Kiihne, Lehrbuch, pp. 98100. 



2 Hammarsten, Abstract in Jahresber. d. ges. Med. 1870, Vol. i. p. 106. See also 

 Maly in Hermann's Handbuch, Vol. v. II. 181. 



3 Maly uud Emich, 'Ueber das Verhalten der Gallensauren zu Eiweissund Peptonen 

 und iiber deren antiseptische Wirkungen.' Monatschrift /. Ghent. Vol. iv. (1883), 

 pp. 89120. 



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