410 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1730. 



conjunct causes of this motion in health, which would be defective by the total 

 want of any of them. 



Hence it is, that in scirrhosities of the liver, where the secretion, and there- 

 fore the excretion of the bile, is more or less defective ; and in the jaundice, 

 where, by some obstruction in the biliary ducts after secretion, a part of it is 

 forced back, and regurgitates into the blood, and very little of it is thrown 

 into the guts : in those cases we observe an uncommon distension in the guts, 

 and costiveness; which, if the case proves incurable, terminates in an ascites, 

 or dropsy, in the cavity of the belly. 



It may also be worth while to inquire, whether that which is commonly 

 called an hysteric, or nervous colic, generally attended with a less degree of 

 such like distensions, with flatuses and borborygmi; whether this distemper, 

 wherein the animal spirits are so much, and only accused, does not partly arise 

 from a sluggish secretion and excretion of the bile, occasioning a defect in its 

 quantity; or from its acrimony and great viscosity, occasioned by its stagnation 

 in the gall-bladder; or from both these, as well as from a defective or unequal 

 distribution of the blood and spirits in the parts affected. In confirmation of 

 which, it is generally observed, that at some time or other in the cure, a great 

 evacuation of porraceous viscid bile, brought away either by art or nature, as 

 well as a great profusion of pale urine, finished the cure for that time. The 

 vomiting of porraceous bile, very common in such cases, proves the same; 

 and it is generally allowed, that the ferruginous, porraceous, and black colour 

 of the bile, are owing to shorter or longer stagnations of it, chiefly in the gall- 

 bladder, which the sedentary life of those who are subject to these colics, will 

 sufficiently account for, even if there was no other error in their way of living; 

 and whoever has observed the high yellow colour and contents of the urine in 

 a iaundice, arising from a redundancy of bile in the blood, will readily ac- 

 knowledge that an uncommon watery paleness in the urine, where no more than 

 the usual quantity of fluids has been taken down to dilute it, shows a defect of 

 bile in the blood. And hence it is, that bitters and steel, known deobstruents 

 of the liver, and correctors of the bile, with gentle cholagogues in very small 

 doses, are of so much use in such cases; though it be certainly true, that all 

 strong stimulating purgatives are very hurtful and improper. 



1, But to return to our case, there was no ructuses or flatuses upwards or 

 downwards, nor borborygmi, notwithstanding this distension of the belly and 

 inflation of the guts. This seems to show very plainly that the guts had lost 

 all motion, and were paralytic by a total want of bile only, as much as if 

 their nerves had been totally obstructed: for had any motion remained in them, 

 whether the natural and regular peristaltic motion, or a preternatural convulsive 



