496 DIGESTION. 



Biliary fistulas have been established so as to study the importance 

 of the bile in digestion (SCHWANN, BLONDLOT, BIDDER and SCHMIDT,! 

 and others). As a result it has been observed that with fatty foods an 

 imperfect absorption of fat regularly takes place and the excrement 

 contains, therefore, an excess of fat and have a light-gray or pale color. 

 The extent of deviation from the normal after the operation is essentially 

 dependent upon the character of the food. If an animal is fed on meat 

 :and fat, then the quantity of food must be considerably increased after 

 the operation, otherwise the animal will become very thin, and indeed 

 die with symptoms of starvation. In these cases the excrement has 

 the odor of carrion, and this was considered a proof of the action of the 

 bile in checking putrefaction. The emaciation and the increased want 

 of food depend, naturally, upon the imperfect absorption of the fats, 

 whose high calorific value is reduced and must be replaced by the taking 

 up of larger quantities of other nutritive bodies. If the quantity of pro- 

 teins and fats be increased, then the latter, which can be only incom- 

 pletely absorbed, accumulate in the intestine. This accumulation of 

 the fats in the intestine only renders the action of the digestive juices 

 on proteins more difficult, and thus increases the amount of putrefaction. 

 This explains the appearance of fetid feces, whose pale color is not due 

 to a lack of bile-pigments, but to a surplus of fat (ROHMANN, VOIT). 

 If the animal is, on the contrary, fed on meat and carbohydrates, it may 

 remain quite normal, and the leading off of the bile does not cause any 

 increased putrefaction. The carbohydrates may be uninterrupedly 

 absorbed in such large quantities that they replace the fat of the food, 

 and this is the reason why the animal on such a diet does not become 

 emaciated. As with this diet the putrefaction in the intestine is no 

 greater than under normal conditions even though the bile is absent, 

 it would seem that the bile in the intestine exercises no preventive action 

 on putrefaction. 



To this conclusion the objection may be made that the carbohydrates, 

 which are capable of checking putrefaction, can, so to speak, undertake 

 the anti-putrid action of the bile. But as there are also cases (in dogs 

 with biliary fistula) where the intestinal putrefaction is not increased, 

 with exclusive meat diet, 2 it is maintained that the absence of bile in the 

 intestine, even by exclusive carbohydrate food, does not always cause an 

 increased putrefaction. 



Although the question as to the manner in which the putrefactive 



Arch. 29; Hirschler and Terray, Maly's Jahresber., 26; -Landauer, Math. u. Naturw. 

 Ber aus Ungarn, 15; Rosenberg, Arch. f. (Anat. u.) Physiol., 1901. 



1 Schwann, Miiller's Arch. f. Anat. u. Physiol., 1844; Blondlot, cited from Bidder 

 .and Schmidt, Verdauungssafte, etc., 98. 



2 See Hirschler and Terray, 1. c. 



