328 PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY. 



logist and chemist. THENARD considers bile as consisting, 

 besides the saline ingredients and water, of a yellow matter, 

 of a resin, and a substance which he terms picromel, white, 

 solid, and soluble in water and alcohol. BERZELIUS con- 

 siders bile as consisting of water ; & peculiar biliary matter, 

 of the nature of albumen, and of mucus of the gall-bladder 

 dissolved in the bile, together with alkalis and salts, com- 

 mon to all the secreted fluids. In this peculiar biliary mat- 

 ter BERZELIUS could not detect any azote. 



That different animals should furnish bile with proper- 

 ties depending on the food, which they consumed, and con- 

 sequently dissimilar in its nature, was reasonably to be ex- 

 pected. THENARD found the matter which he describes as 

 picromel, to be present both in some herbivorous and car- 

 nivorous animals ; while in others he could not detect its 

 presence. 



When the chyme has become mixed with the pancreatic 

 juice and the bile, it enters into that state in which a part 

 of it is fit to be absorbed for the nourishment and support 

 of the system, the remaining portion being thrown out as 

 excrement. 



The intestines have been divided by anatomists into the 

 smaller and larger. The smaller intestines, in the more per- 

 fect animals, consist, first, of the duodenum, into which the 

 food passes from the stomach, and receives the two secreted 

 fluids which we have now mentioned, and in which the food 

 is changed into two parts^ a nutritive and a useless. This part 

 of the intestine is larger in its dimensions than that which im- 

 mediately follows, and which is termed the jejunum, from 

 the circumstance of its empty collapsed appearance. The 

 remaining portion, termed ilium, is the longest and most 

 convoluted. During the passage of the food through the 

 small intestines, the chyle is separated by the mouths of 

 the absorbing lacteals. In order to expo.se the food to a 



