CHAP. XXV.] USE OF THE BILE. 259 



which has no parallel in the animal oeconomy. It is more proba- 

 ble, assuming this view to be correct, that the portion of the bile 

 absorbed is taken up by the lacteals ; and if so, we should have an 

 additional indication that only a part of the bile re-enters the cir- 

 culation ; for if the colouring matter were absorbed by the lacteals 

 it would be readily detected in the chyle. 



There are some striking facts which denote a connection be- 

 tween the office of the liver and the calorifacient and respiratory 

 function. Thus, in the boa, although the liver is large, and no 

 doubt secretes bile freely, the excrements contain no trace of bile. 

 In this case, therefore, it must undergo complete decomposition in 

 the intestine, or be entirely absorbed. In carnivorous animals, 

 whose respiratory function is very active, little or no bile is found 

 in the excrements ; while in those of the herbivora, which lead less 

 active lives, and whose food is more combustible in its nature, the 

 elements of the bile are present in considerable quantity. 



According to this view, the bile would be in part excrementitious 

 and carried off in the faeces ; and in part recrementitious, inasmuch 

 as by its absorption into the blood it serves to feed a process 

 highly important to general nutrition, namely, that of animal heat. 

 Still there seem strong grounds for supposing that it must serve 

 yet another purpose ; else why should the intestinal blood charged 

 with some of the combustible materials derived by absorption from 

 the digested food be subjected to the action of the liver in order to 

 yield a complex fluid, which is poured into the intestinal canal. In 

 truth we can find no explanation of this remarkable course of the 

 intestinal venous blood, nor of the situation at which the secreted 

 fluid, the bile, is discharged from the liver, but in the hypo- 

 thesis that the bile has some function to perform in the intestinal 

 canal. 



This leads us to enquire whether the bile has any power of re- 

 ducing certain elements of food which have been only partially, or 

 not at all dissolved in the stomach. 



We have as yet no satisfactory observations which lead to any 

 positive conclusion upon this point. A series of careful experi- 

 ments as to the influence of bile upon alimentary matters is much 

 needed. Hunefeld's experiments* on this subject tend to establish 

 the general fact that fibrinous and albuminous matters do seem to 

 be dissolved under its influence at a temperature equal, or nearly 

 so, to that of the blood. 



The connection of a gall-bladder with the liver in most animals 

 * Quoted in Valentin, Physiologic, b. i. p. 349. 



