DIGESTION. 185 



This experiment has been performed at least ten times by Schwann, 

 Bidder and Schmidt,* Bernard, f and Flint, J the biliary fistula remain- 

 ing open, and the common bile-duct, as shown by subsequent examina- 

 tion, permanently closed, so that no bile found its way into the intes- 

 tine. The general results in these cases were alike. The animals 

 died in most instances between the thirtieth and fortieth day after the 

 operation. The shortest duration of life was seven days, the longest 

 eighty day? ; the average thirty-six days. The symptoms were con- 

 stant and progressive emaciation, to such a degree that nearly all 

 traces of fat disappeared from the body. The loss of weight amounted, 

 in one case, to more than two-fifths, and in another to nearly one-half 

 that of the whole body. There was sometimes falling off of the hair, 

 and a putrescent odor in the feces and in the breath. Notwithstanding 

 this, the appetite remained good. Digestion was scarcely interfered 

 with, and none of the food was discharged with the feces ; but there 

 was, in the two cases of Bidder and Schmidt, more or less abnormal 

 discharge of flatus. There was no pain ; and death took place without 

 violent symptoms, by gradual failure of the vital powers. 



It is also certain that the bile disappears during its passage through 

 the intestine. We have found that if dogs be killed at various periods 

 after feeding, and the upper, middle, and lower portions of the intestinal 

 canal separately examined, the quantity of bile present diminishes from 

 above downward. The mass of intestinal contents also grows smaller 

 and more consistent toward the ileo-csecal valve ; their color at the same 

 time changing from light yellow to dark bronze or blackish-green, 

 always strongly pronounced in the last quarter of the small intestine. 

 The ether precipitate of their alcoholic extract, representing the biliary 

 salts, is only one-fifth or one-sixth as abundant, in proportion to the 

 entire solid contents, in the large intestine as in the small ; and if dis- 

 solved in water, that from both upper and lower portions of the small 

 intestine always gives Pettenkofer's reaction in less than a minute and 

 a half, while in that from the large intestine no red or purple color is 

 usually produced, even at the end of three hours. Bidder and Schmidt 

 analyzed all the feces passed during five days by a healthy dog weighing 

 8 kilogrammes. From the result of former experiments (page 182) it 

 is known that a dog of this size must have secreted during that time 

 not far from 40 grammes of solid biliary matter ; while the entire 

 quantity of these matters in the feces was less than 4 grammes. The 

 acids of the biliary salts have been found by Hoppe-Seyler in the feces, 

 both of the dog and the calf; but according to his own estimate || their 

 quantity, as discharged with the excrement, is always insignificant in 

 proportion to that secreted in a corresponding time. 



* Yerdauungssaefte und Stoffwechsel. Leipzig, 1852, p. 103. 

 f Liquides de 1'Organisme. Paris, 1859, tome ii., p. 199. 

 t Physiology of Man. New York, 1867, p. 369. 

 \ Verdauungssaefte und Stoftwechsel. Leipzig, 1852, p. 217. 

 || Physiologische Chemie. Berlin, 1878, p. 337. 



