164 A Manual of Vet&Hmary Physiology. 



able difference in two purely vegetable-feeding animals. 

 In the horse food in greater or less quantity is always passing 

 along the small bowels ; as the stomach under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances practically never empties itself, it is, therefore, 

 necessary that bile should always be poured into the intes- 

 tine In the ox, where the food makes a prolonged stay in 

 the stomachs, bile is only required at the moment when the 

 chyme finds its way into the duodenum : in the interval it 

 is stored up ready for use. 



The bile being alkaline, its first action on the chyme is to 

 precipitate the acid albumin which has escaped the process 

 of peptonizing in the stomach. One effect of this is pro- 

 bably to protect the pancreatic ferments from the pepsin 

 of the gastric juice, and further, to delay the progress of 

 the chyme along the bowel, and so give the pancreatic 

 juice time to act. On proteids the bile has no digestive 

 action; on fats, however, it has a solvent and emulsifying 

 effect, being more active in the presence than in the 

 absence of pancreatic juice. Bile cannot split up fats into 

 fatty acids and glycerine as the pancreas does, but if free 

 fatty acids are present the bile salts are decomposed, their 

 soda set free, and soluble soaps formed ; the soaps so 

 formed assist in rendering the emulsifying effect of the 

 bile permanent and the absorption of fat much easier. 

 Fat will not readily pass through a membrane, but if the 

 latter be first moistened with bile the passage is readily 

 effected. On the starch of the food bile in the herbivora 

 is said to exert some action, but it would appear that, in 

 this respect it mainly assists the pancreas, the juice of the 

 latter being more active on starch in the presence of than 

 in the absence of bile. 



The further action of bile on the intestinal contents is to 

 keep them from putrefaction and promote peristalsis, for it, 

 is found that when the bile is prevented from entering the 

 intestines, constipation and extreme foetor of the intestinal 

 contents results. 



Bunge states that, the clay-coloured feeces obtained in 

 jaundice is due to the presence of una. 'ted-on fat; the fat 



