BILE. 



villus, the epithelium of the villus being now composed only 

 of its albuminous elements, more or less liquefied, begins to 

 fall into decay ; fragments of it were long since found to 

 exist in the intestine, but they were designated under the 

 name of crude chyle. We find young cellular elements 

 ready to take the place of this decayed epithelium. 



It is at this instant only (7 or 8 hours after the ingestion 

 of the food), that the bile is poured into the intestinal 

 canal. 



The bile is a fluid which it is difficult to study satisfactorily 

 when it is contained in the biliary or gall-bladder of a 

 corpse; because, under these conditions, it decomposes 

 rapidly, especially when in contact with the mucus of this 

 bladder; its color and its reaction are then changed. In 

 order to form an exact idea of it, a fistula should be opened 

 at the bottom of the gall bladder, through the coats of the 

 abdomen, care being taken to tie the cystic duct (ductus 

 choledochus), lest any fluid should escape into the intestinal 

 canal. In this way, the bile may be collected, and the flow of 

 the secretion will be found very abundant and almost uninter- 

 rupted, increasing in quantity, however, especially at a certain 

 period of digestion. The quantity of water in this fluid has 

 been estimated in the ratio of 20 to 1 : the solid residuum is, 

 therefore, 5 grammes to 100 grammes of bile. On the other 

 hand, this solid residuum represents, for 24 hours, a mean 

 weight of TTJW P art of the weight of the body : thus, in the 

 case of man, whose mean weight is 65 kilogrammes, we find 

 that, in 24 hours, the anhydrous bile would be represented 

 by 05 grammes ; on multiplying this figure by 20, we obtain 

 1 kilogramme, 300 grammes, as the weight of the bile secreted 

 in 24 hours. 



Under these circumstances it is also found that the natural 

 color of the bile is not green, as it appears in autopsies (being 

 impaired by the mucus of the vesicle), and as it is some- 

 times seen in vomited matter (being then changed by the 

 action of the gastric juice). The natural color of the bile 

 is green only in the case of the oviparous animals ; in all the 

 mammalia it is yellow, as may be seen in persons suffering 

 from reabsorption of the bile, the yellowish tinge appearing 

 in all the tissues, beginning with the white of the eye : the 

 white of the eye of jaundiced persons is always yellow. 



We ascertain, finally, that the normal bile is quite neutral; 

 its mixture with the mucus sometimes imparts to it an 



