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V.—On the Physiological Actions of Drugs on the Secretion of Bile. By. 
| ~Wiuiam Rutuerrorp, M.D., F.R.SS. L. and E., Professor of the Insti- 
tutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. 
From Experiments performed with the assistance of Monsieur W, VIGNAL and WILLIAM 
J. Dopps, M.B., D.Sc. 
(Read on 5th March 1877 and on 17th June 1878. Abstracts in the ‘‘ Proceedings” of those dates. )* 
INTRODUCTION. 
(For References and Table of Contents, see end of Memoir.) 
Since the liver is an organ whose due activity is indispensable for the main- 
tenance of health; since it is frequently the subject of disorder, and conse- 
- quently receives a large share of attention from the physician, it is obviously 
of great importance that he should possess precise knowledge of the manner in 
which it is affected by medicinal agents. 
The physician has had no difficulty in determining when a substance excites 
the sweat glands, the salivary glands, or the kidneys, but as regards the liver 
he has been so much embarrassed, that although substances supposed to 
_inerease the discharge of bile (cholagogues, yon, bile; ayw, to drive away) 
have been administered to man for over 2000 years, there has always been 
-much uncertainty as to those which are really to be regarded as cholagogues ; 
and even in the case of any agent which increases the discharge of bile, he has 
been quite unable to determine whether this effect is due to a stimulation of the 
bile-secreting or of the bile-expelling mechanism. 
The reasons for these uncertainties are not difficult to find. The bile, when 
it enters the intestinal canal, mingles with other secretions, and with alimentary 
substances, whose quantities are variable. The physician roughly estimates the 
amount of bile discharged, by observing the colour of the dejections—a method 
which is of necessity so imaccurate that it is often difficult, sometimes indeed 
impossible, to say whether or not the discharge of bile is increased, diminished, 
* By the permission of the Council, I have been allowed a year to prepare this research for publi- 
cation in the “ Transactions.” The experimental work was, however, entirely completed before the last 
‘abstract was read before the Society. ‘ 
VO, XXIX, PART I: - 2M 
