102 THE BILE. 



may thus be separated without it ; but probably, Dr. Prout con- 

 ceives, in less quantity and perfection. 



The neutralising effect of the bile, he informs me, is evident on 

 laying a piece of litmus paper through the pylorus, when the 

 portion in the stomach becomes red, and that in the intestines is 

 unaffected, or even shows alkaline agency. 



The further down the intestinal contents are examined, the 

 more do all traces of albuminous matters disappear, as well as of 

 all the highly azotised ra principles of the pancreatic juice, these 

 being supposed to convert the unazotised principles of the vege- 

 table food into albumen : in man and carnivorous brutes no traces 

 of either are discoverable so low down as the caecum. 



Dr. Prout remarks, that " admitting that the decomposition of 

 the salt of the blood is owing to the immediate agency of gal- 

 vanism, we have in the principal digestive organs a kind of 

 galvanic apparatus, of which the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach, and perhaps that of the intestinal canal generally, may 

 be considered as the acid or positive pole ; while the hepatic 

 system may, on the same view, be considered as the alkaline or 

 negative pole." n 



The hypothesis, that one great use of the liver was, like that of 

 the lungs, to remove carbon from the system, with this difference, 

 that the alteration of the capacity of the air caused a reception 

 of caloric into the blood, in the case of the lungs, while the he- 

 patic excretion takes place without introduction of caloric, was, 

 I recollect, a great favourite with me when a student, principally 

 from the facts that a supply of venous blood blood which has 

 been used by the system runs to both liver and lungs, and to 

 no other organs ; that the higher the temperature, the less carbon 

 passed off by the lungs (less caloric being demanded by the body), 

 and the more abundant, or more acrid, became the bile ; so that 

 bilious diseases are most prevalent in hot seasons and climates. 

 The Heidelberg Professors have adduced many arguments to the 

 same effect. In the foetus, for whose temperature the mother's 

 heat must be sufficient, the lungs perform no function, but the 

 liver is of great size, and bile is secreted abundantly, so that the 

 meconium accumulates considerably during the latter months of 



m In examining the blood, we shall find that M. Raspail considers nitrogen 

 to exist in animal and vegetable substances, combined with hydrogen as am- 

 monia. 



n Sridgewater Treatise, 496. sq. 



