THE BILE. 243 



bile solids. If we consider the quantity of bile secreted by 

 the liver, we must come to the conclusion that, although per- 

 haps not an essential, it still must play an important part in 

 the function of digestion. 



When bile is added to the matters dissolved by gastric 

 juice, it stops the process of digestion, and exerting an anti- 

 septic action, they may be kept for a long time without under- 

 going a further change; it, moreover, precipitates the albumi- 

 noid substances which have been dissolved. It appears likely 

 that the bile, whose action is intermediate between gastric and 

 intestinal digestion, arrests the former entirely, while it pre- 

 cipitates the alimentary matters on the coats of the intestine, 

 there to be subjected to the action of other secretions. It 

 probably facilitates the absorption of fat, as the fseces of dogs 

 with biliary fistulse generally contain fat, and it seems un- 

 doubtedly to exert an antiseptic action, and prevents decom- 

 position of the intestinal contents, for in these dogs the 

 excrements have a most repulsive odour. 



The experiments of Bidder and Schmidt have shown that 

 the bile is secreted in greatest abundance by the liver from 

 twelve to fifteen hours after the introduction of food into the 

 stomach ; and the experiments of Dalton,* and others, show 

 that it is discharged into the intestine in by far the largest 

 quantity immediately after feeding, and within the first hour. 

 Bernard supposes that the acidity of the chyme stimulates 

 this discharge, for he found that on touching the opening of 

 the ductus choledocus in the intestines, with a glass rod dipped 

 in acetic acid, bile was immediately squirted into it In its 

 course through the intestines the bile is in great part absorbed, 

 how and by what means is not, however, known, for it can- 

 not be detected in the blood of the portal vein, or in the 

 chyle. 



* See D ALTON'S Treatise on Human Physiology, p. 156. 



