190 



THE BILE. 



Fig. 53. 



in all these instances, bile was present in the small intestine. It is, 

 therefore, plainly not an intermittent secretion, nor one which is 

 concerned exclusively in the digestive process ; but its secretion is 

 constant, and it continues to be discharged into the intestine for 

 many days after the animal has been deprived of food. 



The next point of importance to be examined relates to the time 

 after feeding at which the bile passes into the intestine in the greatest 

 abundance. Bidder and Schmidt have already investigated this 

 point in the following manner. They operated, as above described, 

 by tying the common bile-duct, and then opening the fundus of the 

 gall-bladder, so as to produce a biliary fistula, by which the whole 

 of the bile was drawn off. By doing this operation, and collecting 

 and weighing the fluid discharged at different periods, they came 



to the conclusion that the flow 

 of bile begins to increase within 

 two and a half hours after the 

 introduction of food into the 

 stomach, but that it does not 

 reach its maximum of activity 

 till the end of twelve or fifteen 

 hours. Other observers, how- 

 ever, have obtained different 

 results. Arnold, 1 for example, 

 found the quantity to be largest 

 soon after meals, decreasing 

 again after the fourth hour. 

 Kolliker and Miiller, 2 again, 

 found it largest between the 

 sixth and eighth hours. Bidder 

 and Schmidt's experiments, in- 

 deed, strictly speaking, show 

 FISTULA. a. stomach, ft. DUO- only the time at which the bile 



denum. c, c, c. Pancreas ; its two ducts are seen ig mQst act i ve l y seC reted by the 

 opening into the duodenum, one near the orifice 



of the biliary duct, d, the other a short distance liver, but not when it is actually 



, Silver tube passing th,ou^u, e digcharged into the intestine . 



Our own experiments, bear- 

 ing on this point, were performed on dogs, by making a permanent 

 duodenal fistula, on the same plan that gastric fistulas have so often 



lower down. 



abdominal wnllsand opening into the d 



In Am. Journ. Med. Sci., April, 1856. 



2 Ibid., April, 1857. 



