1^6 SirE. Home on the Formation of Fat 



tinged with bile, to make the experiment. "The excrement 

 was put into water, and kept heated for three hours to a tem- 

 perature of above loo". When the water was allowed to cool, 

 a film was formed upon the surface, which appeared to be of 

 an oily nature, and Mr. Brande ascertained it to be so. The 

 quantity was not great, but quite sufficient to ascertain the 

 fact, and next day the faeces having subsided, the fatty film 

 was much more conspicuous. In the Phil, Trans, for 1673, 

 p. 6093, a case is stated of a person who laboured under an 

 indisposition, attended with sickness and vomiting. In one 

 attack of vomiting, he brought up matter resembling tallow, 

 four pieces of which weighed half an ounce. 



This process of forming fat in the lower intestines by means 

 of bile, throws considerable light upon the nourishment de- 

 rived from clysters, a fact well ascertained, but which could 

 not be explained. It also accounts for the wasting of the body, 

 which so invariably attends upon all complaints of the lower 

 bowels. It accounts, too, for all the varieties in the turns of 

 the colon, which we meet with in so great a degree in diffe- 

 rent animals. This property of the bile explains likewise the 

 formation of fatty concretions in the gall-bladder, so» com- 

 monly met with, and which, from these experiments, appear 

 to be produced by the action of the bile on the mucus secreted 

 in the gall-bladder : and it enables us to understand the fol- 

 lowing effects, which arose from the circumstance of no part 

 of the bile passing into the intestines. 



A child was born, at the full time, of the usual size, and 

 lived for several months, but never appeared to increase in 

 size, although it fed heartily, had regular stools, and the food 

 seemed perfectly digested. There was no bile in the stools. 





