194 THE BILE. 



by alcohol and precipitated by ether, as above described, their 

 watery solution will precipitate with gastric juice, in the same 

 manner as fresh bile would do. 



Although the biliary matters, however, precipitate by contact 

 with fresh gastric juice, they do not do so with gastric juice which holds 

 albuminose in solution. We have invariably found that if the gas- 

 tric juice be digested for several hours at the temperature of 100 

 F., with boiled white of egg, the filtered fluid, which contains an 

 abundance of albuminose, will no longer give the slightest precipi- 

 tate on the addition of bile, or of a watery solution of the biliary 

 substances, even in very large amount. The gastric juice and the 

 bile, therefore, are not finally antagonistic to each other in the 

 digestive process, though at first they produce a precipitate on 

 being mingled together. 



It appears, however, from the experiments detailed above, that 

 the secretion of the bile and its discharge into the intestine are not 

 confined to the periods of digestion, but take place constantly, and 

 continue even after the animal has been kept for many days with- 

 out food. These facts would lead us to regard the bile as simply 

 an excrementitious fluid ; containing only ingredients resulting from 

 the waste and disintegration of the animal tissues, and not intended 

 to perform any particular function, digestive or otherwise, but 

 merely to be eliminated from the blood, and discharged from the 

 system. The same view is more or less supported, also, by the 

 following facts, viz : 



1st. The bile is produced, unlike all the other animal secretions, 

 from venous blood ; that is, the blood of the portal vein, which has 

 already become contaminated by circulation through the abdominal 

 organs, and may be supposed to contain disorganized and effete in- 

 gredients; and 



2d. Its complete suppression produces, in the human subject, 

 symptoms of poisoning of the nervous system, analogous to those 

 which follow the suppression of the urine, or the stoppage of respi- 

 ration, and the patient dies, usually in a comatose condition, at the 

 end of ten or twelve days. 



The above circumstances, taken together, would combine to 

 make it appear that the bile is simply an excrementitious fluid, not 

 necessary or useful as a secretion, but only destined, like the urine, 

 to be eliminated and discharged. Nevertheless, experiment has 

 shown that such is not the case ; and that, in point of fact, it is 

 necessary for the life of the animal, not only that the bile be secreted 



