62 AMOUNT OF BILE SECRETED 



no purpose in the economy, and is incapable of further 

 change. 



No part of any organized structure contains soda ; 

 only in the serum of the blood, in the fat of the brain, 

 and in the bile, do we meet with that alkali. When the 

 compounds of soda in the blood are converted into mus- 

 cular fibre, membrane, or cellular tissue, the soda they 

 contain must enter into new combinations. The blood 

 which is transformed into organized tissue gives up its 

 soda to the compounds formed by the metamorphoses 

 of the previously existing tissues. In the bile we find 

 one of these compounds of soda. 



Were the bile intended merely for excretion, we 

 should find it, more or less altered, and also the soda it 

 contains, in the solid excrements. But, with the excep- 

 tion of common salt, and of sulphate of soda, which 

 occur in all the animal fluids, only mere traces of soda 

 are to be found in the faeces. The soda of the bile, 

 therefore, at all events, must have returned from the 

 intestinal canal into the organism, and the same must be 

 true of the organic matters which were in combination 

 with it. 



According to the observations of physiologists, a man 

 secretes daily from 17 to 24 oz. of bile ; a large dog, 

 36 oz. ; a horse, 37 Ibs. (Burdach's Physiologic, V. 

 p. 260.) But the faeces of a man do not on an average 

 weigh more than 5| oz. ; and those of a horse 28| Ibs., 

 of which 21 Ibs. are water, and 7| Ibs. dry faeces. 

 (Boussingault.) The latter yield to alcohol only ^th 

 part of their weight of soluble matter. 



