THE BILE. 99 



" Our attention must now be turned to the bile itself a very 

 important fluid, respecting the nature and use of which there 

 has been more controversy for these forty years than about any 

 other fluid. 



" The cystic bile, being more perfect and better calculated for 

 examination, will supply our observations. 



" Bile taken from a fresh adult subject is rather viscid, of a 

 brownish green colour d , inodorous, and, if compared with that of 

 brutes, scarcely bitter." 



Berzelius 6 stated, that bile contains alkali and salts in the 

 same proportion as the blood, and that no resin exists in it, but 

 11 a peculiar matter, of a bitter and afterwards somewhat sweet 

 taste, which possesses characters in common with the fibrin, the 

 colouring matter, and the albumen of the blood." This forms, 

 with an excess of acid, a perfectly resinous precipitate. What 

 was considered albumen in the bile, Berzelius regarded as the 

 mucus of the gall-bladder. 



Bile contained, according to him, of 



Water ., - 907-4- 



Biliary matter - - - 8OO 



Mucus of the gall-bladder dissolved in the bile - 3*0 

 Alkalies and salts common to all secreted fluids - 9*6 



1000-0 f 



Of the weight of alkalies and salts, more than one half was 

 pure soda. 



Tiedemann and Gmelin make the bile of the ox to consist of 

 91-51 water, with 7-30 proximate principles, and 1-19 salts. The 

 biliary matter, or picromel, they find a compound of resin and 

 a sweet crystallisable substance, which, together with another, 

 termed by them biliary asparagin, renders the resin soluble in 

 water. They discover also ozmazome s, and a new acid the 

 cholic, also cholesterin, gliadine, casein, the oleic, acetic, phos- 

 phoric, sulphuric, and muriatic acids, and colouring matter. The 



d " On the variety of colour in the bile, consult Bordenave, Analyse de la 

 Bile, in the Mtm. Prtsentts, &c. t. vii. p. 611. 617." 



e Animal Chemistry, p. 65. 



f Med. Chirurg. Trans, vol. iii. p. 241. 



6 A substance produced, like gelatin, by boiling, and obtained from muscle, 

 serum, or even mushrooms ; and, according to M. Raspail, it is a mere impure 

 combination of albumen and acetic acid. 



H 4 



