306 STBUCTUBE OF THE LIVER ! BILE. 



hepatic cells are really included within their extensions (as 

 they are within the tubes or follicles of the liver of Inverte- 

 brata); or whether the cells lie outside the bile-ducts, in 

 immediate contact with the capillary blood-vessels that tra- 

 verse the lobule, filling up the entire space not occupied by 

 them, and transmitting the products of their secretion from 

 one to another, until these reach the exterior of the lobule, 

 where they find their way into the bile-ducts and are carried 



*& 

 -Jfisini 





Fig. 171. TRANSVERSE SECTION op TWO LOBULES OP THE LIVER; 



Showing the bile-ducts distended by injection ; a a, ramifications of the hepatic 

 vein, occupying the centres of the lobules ; b b b, branches of the hepatic 

 ducts, which are largest in the space c, between the lobules, and which pass 

 towards the centre through d d, the substance of the lobules. 



off by them. The bile may flow directly, as it is secreted, 

 into the intestinal tube ( 213); but if digestion be not going 

 on, so that its presence there is not required, it regurgitates 

 into the gall-bladder (fig. 30), which stores it up until it is 

 needed. In this reservoir it undergoes a certain degree of 

 concentration by the removal of its watery part. 



364. Bile is a yellowish (sometimes a greenish-yellow) 

 fluid, somewhat viscid and oily-looking, and having a very 

 bitter taste, followed by a sweetish after-taste. It is readily 

 miscible with water, its solution frothing like one of soap ; 

 and it has the power, in common with soap, of dissolving oily 

 matters ; so that ox-gall is not unfrequently used to remove 

 grease-spots from woollen stuffs. The basis of the principal 

 ingredient of biliary matter, which constitutes about 5 parts 

 in 100 of the secretion, is a fatty or resinoid acid which is 

 termed the Cholic; this consists of 49 Carbon, 39 Hydrogen, 

 and 9 Oxygen ; and it forms, by " conjugation " with glycine (a 



