306. STRUCTURE OF THE LIVER :—BILE. 
hepatic cells are really included within their extensions (as 
they are within the tubes or follicles of the liver of Inverte- — 
brata) ; or whether the cells lie outside the bile-ducts, in — 
immediate contact with the capillary blood-vessels that tra- 
verse the lobule, filling up the entire space not occupied by — 
them, and transmitting the products of their secretion from — 
one to another, until these reach the exterior of the lobule, © 
where they find their way into the bile-ducts and are carried : 
Fig. 171.—TRransvERSE SECTION OF TWO LOBULES OF THE LIVER; 
Showing the bile-ducts distended by injection; a a, ramifications of the hepatic 
vein, occupying the centres of the lobules; 4 } 6, branches of the hepatic 
ducts, which are largest in the space c, between the lobules, and which pass 
towards the centre through d d, the substance of the lobules, F 
off by them.—The bile may flow directly, as it is secreted, | 
into the intestinal tube (§$ 213); but if digestion be not going 
on, so that its presence there is not required, it regurgitate 
into the gall-bladder (fig. 30), which stores it up until it is 7j 
needed. In this reservoir it undergoes a certain degree of J 
concentration by the removal of its watery part. 4 
364. Bile is a yellowish (sometimes a greenish-yellow) 
fluid, somewhat viscid and oily-looking, and having a very 
bitter taste, followed by a sweetish after-taste. It is readily } 
miscible with water, its solution frothing like one of soap; | 
and it has the power, in common with soap, of dissolving oily } 
matters ; so that ox-gall is not unfrequently used to remove } 
grease-spots from woollen stuffs. The basis of the principal 
ingredient of biliary matter, which constitutes about 5 parts 
in 100 of the secretion, is a fatty or resinoid acid which 
termed the Cholic; this consists of 49 Carbon, 39 Hydroge: 
