CHYLE. 413 



The gall-bladder of the Coluber natrix, according to the same 

 chemists, contained a gramme (15'433 grains) of bile, which 

 was grass-green, transparent, and very liquid. 



Berzelius made some experiments upon the bile of the Python 

 amethystinus, a snake from Bengal, which died accidentally at 

 Stockholm.* It had a deep-green colour passing into yellow. 

 When partially evaporated, it left a transparent mass having the 

 same colour, soft, but very viscid, and completely soluble in 

 water. He found it to contain biliary matter, doubtless chole- 

 ates of potash and soda, colouring matter, a substance capable of 

 crystallizing, a substance analogous to salivin, albumen, fatty 

 acids, and certain salts. 



Tiedemann and Gmelin analyzed the bile of several fishes, but 

 the facts ascertained do not seem of sufficient importance to be 

 detailed. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OF CHYLE. 



OWING to the small size of the lacteals, and the consequent 

 difficulty of collecting their contents in any quantity, the proper- 

 ties of vhyle, as it is when just absorbed from the intestines, are 

 but imperfectly known. In the mammalia it is opaque and white 

 as milk : in birds and fishes it is nearly transparent and colour- 

 less. 



MM. Emmert and Reuss, about the year 1808, made a set of 

 experiments on the chyle of the horse, which was published in 181 1 

 in the Annales de Chimie (Ixxx. 81.) They collected the chyle 

 from different parts of the thoracic duct. The chyle in the lacteals 

 was white like milk, while that in the thoracic duct was of a pale- 

 yellow colour. It had the consistence of serum of blood, a sa- 

 line taste, and a peculiar smell. It assumed a pink colour on ex- 

 posure to the air, resembling a mixture of milk with some drops 

 of blood. It coagulated when exposed to the air, but slowly and 

 imperfectly. We see, from these observations, imperfect as they 

 are, that chyle has considerable resemblance to blood. It coa- 

 gulates spontaneously like blood, and therefore contains a sub- 



* Poggendorf s Annalen, xviii. 87. 



