CHEMICAL PHYSIOLOGY. 17 



have sodium chloride, and that the hydrogen of the 

 acid has again combined with oxygen (hydroxyl) and 

 formed water. 



NaHO + HOI = NaCI + H 2 O 



That is to say, by boiling bile with hydrochloric 

 acid we reproduce the chloride of sodium which before 

 has been decomposed in the walls of the stomach. In 

 our food we take no salt of sodium combined with 

 biliary acid, or any acid that can be transformed into 

 it. We take many substances containing sulphur and 

 nitrogen which can furnish the biliary or special 

 organic part of the bile, but not the soda salts con- 

 tained in it. Their production is just the function 

 of the liver. The liver splits up or chemolyses albu- 

 minous substances or albumen into products of which 

 a part is at present unknown, another part, however, 

 well known under the nsCme of biliary acids and coloured 

 ingredients. They are taurocholic acid, glykocholic 

 acid, cholophseine, bilifuscine, biliprasine, choline, 

 lecithine, and cholesterine. 



Taurocholic acid (0 2a H 45 lf0 7 S) contains all the 

 sulphur of the bile. By this ingredient it manifests 

 itself as a derivate of albumen, which also contains 

 sulphur. Glykocholic acid (C 26 H 43 N0 6 ) is nitrogenous 

 only, and free from sulphur. Both acids yield by 

 chemylosis an acid free from nitrogen and sulphur, 

 cholic acid (C 24 H 40 5 ). But the sulphuretted acid yields 

 as the second product a body containing all the sulphur 

 and nitrogen of the original acid, namely, taurine= 

 C 3 H 7 ]Sr0 3 S = dehydrated isaethionate of ammonia, and 



2 



