PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIONS OF DRUGS OF THE SECRETION OF BILE. 243 
to affect the human liver will be considered in the sequel. Calomel is usually 
taken at bed-time on an empty stomach. We do not know if it can call forth 
a secretion of gastric juice sufficient to exert an appreciable jnfluence upon it ; 
but in any case, it probably does not remain in the stomach more than five or 
six hours atthe utmost. We however postpone for the present the further con- 
sideration of this point. 
Obviously, our next duty was to ascertain whether or not corrosive sub- 
limate has the power of stimulating the liver. | 
Experiment 78. Dog that had fasted seventeen hours. Weight 8°8 kilo- 
grammes (fig. 78).—Into the duodenum there were injected the following frac- 
tions of a grain of corrosive 
sublimate dissolved in 3 cc. 
water : = ata, 75 at b, Js ate, . 
go at d, 7; at 2, + at /: two- 
fifths of agrain being given inall. 
Necropsy.— The mucous ° 
membrane of about fourteen 
Fig. 78.—Secretion of bile before and after mercuric chloride (cor- 
inches of the upper portion rosive sublimate) given without bile. a 2, grain, b +5 grain, 
' E ¢ ps grain, d ; grain, e 7; grain, f 7 grain mercuric chloride in 
of the small intestine was 3 ce. water injected into duodénum. (2 grain in all.) 
much congested. In the upper part of the duodenum there were minute 
hemorrhagic extravasations. There was evidence of a very slight purgative 
effect. 
- The increase of secretion that followed the fourth dose of mercuric chloride 
was so slight, that on the whole the result must be regarded as negative. 
Considering the solubility of mercuric chloride in water,—and the striking con- 
trast between it and calomel in this respect,—it is not at all probable that the 
negative result in.Experiment 78 was due to the non-absorption of the mer- 
curial salt. Possibly it was simply owing to the circumstance that, in small— 
somewhat weak dogs—such as that employed in the above experiment, the 
most certain cholagogues sometimes fail to stimulate the liver, probably because 
of the depressing effect of the preliminary operation adopted in these experi- 
ments. At the same time, we resolved in the next experiment to add some 
bile to the mercuric chloride solution, in case its presence might facilitate 
absorption, or, at any rate, in order that the conditions encountered in the 
intestine in a normal case, might be more exactly imitated. 
Experiment 78a. Dog that had fasted nineteen hours. Weight 16:2 
kilogrammes (fig. 78A).—2°5 cc. water and 0°5 cc. bile were injected into 
the duodenum at 6, and ; grain corrosive sublimate in the same fluid 
was injected at c, and the same dose was repeated at c’. At the end of 
two hours the bile-secretion began to rise, and rose still higher after the 
second dose. 
