PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIONS OF DRUGS ON THE SECRETION OF BILE. 251 
in {the stomach was 10 grains, and it occasioned no increased secretion 
of bile.* 
But it may be said, Although these facts render it impossible to entertain 
the idea that the action of calomel is due to the mercuric chloride produced 
from it by the gastric juice, is it not possible that the entire absence of the bile 
from the intestine in the case of the experiments of BENNETT’s Committee 
interfered with the absorption of the drug, so that while it excited the intestinal 
glands with which it came directly in contact, it failed to excite the liver because 
it could not reach it? This objection cannot be entertained—(1) Because 
Experiments 76 and 76a of the present series prove that when calomel mixed 
with bile is placed in the duodenum it does not stimulate the liver. (2) In the 
experiments of BENNETT’s Committee, although the calomel could not possibly 
encounter bile in the alimentary canal, a part of it must have been absorbed, 
because when given in small doses, frequently repeated, the animal speedily 
lost its appetite and became extremely unwell, although the doses were too 
small to produce purgative action. 
The conclusion is inevitable, that while corrosive sublimate does—calomel 
does not—stimulate the liver of the dog, and that when calomel is placed in 
the stomach of the dog, there is—if the dose be sufficient—the characteristic 
action on the intestinal glands, but no excitement of the liver. There is there- 
fore no evidence that a purgative dose of calomel, when acted on by the gastric 
juice, gives rise to mercuric chloride sufficient to exert any appreciable effect 
on the liver. 
Seeing that in these observations we have submitted to direct experiment 
on the liver of the dog, every substance that has any reputation as a cholagogue 
in the case of man, and seeing that we have found that, with the exception of 
calomel, they all increase the biliary secretion in the dog, it appears to us that 
the remarkable harmony between the vast majority of our results and those of 
clinical experience, entitles us to maintain that our experiments with calomel are 
not to be set aside by the clinical observer, merely because he is of the opinion 
that calomel in some way or other increases the discharge of bileinman. There 
has been on the part of one or two physicians—who in their lamentable ignorance 
and narrow-mindedness imagine that physiological pharmacology studied on a 
dog cannot help them to know the action of a drug on man—a tendency to 
altogether set aside the results of previous experiments with calomel, because 
they do not harmonise with their previously entertained opinions. These 
physicians appear to imagine that they can end the discussion by simply saying 
“the liver of a dog is not that of a man.” That truism cannot be disputed, and 
* The dose of calomel was 10 grains given on three successive days. On the first it produced 
“slight” and on the other two days “decided” purgation, but on all the days the fluid and the solid 
bile was diminished. 
