146 ORIGIN OF THE BILE 



vessels with excess of their fluids, and if the too 

 great supply of food be kept up, and the blood, or 

 other fluids adapted for forming blood, be not applied 

 to their natural purposes, if the soluble matters be 

 not taken up by the proper organs, various gases 

 are disengaged, as in processes of putrefaction, the 

 excrements assume an altered quality in colour, 

 smell, &c. Should the fluids in the absorbent and 

 lymphatic vessels undergo a similar decomposition, 

 this is immediately visible in the blood, and the nu- 

 tritive process then assumes new forms. 



42. No one of all these appearances should occur, 

 if the liver and kidneys were capable of effecting the 

 resolution of the superabundant compounds of pro- 

 teine into urea, uric acid, and bile. All the observa- 

 tions which have been made in reference to the 

 influence of nitrogenised food on the composition of 

 the urine have failed entirely to demonstrate the 

 existence of any direct influence of the kind ; for the 

 phenomena are susceptible of another and a far more 

 simple interpretation, if, along with the food, we con- 

 sider the mode of life and habits of the individuals 

 who have been the subjects of investigation. Gravel 

 and calculus occur in persons who use very little 

 animal food. Concretions of uric acid have never 

 yet been observed in carnivorous mammalia, living 

 in the wild state,* and among nations which live 



* The occurrence of urate of ammonia in a concretion found in 

 a dog, which was examined by Lassaigne, is to be doubted, unless 

 Lassaigne extracted it himself from the bladder of the animal. 



