584 
EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
By Professors TlEDEMANN and Gmelin, of the University of 
Heidelberg . 
THE BILE. 
The composition of the bile has engaged the attention of che- 
mists from the middle of the 17th century. The ancients agreed 
in considering it to be a kind of soap, composed principally of soda 
and a peculiar resinous or oily matter. Fourcroy, relying on the ex- 
periments of his predecessors and his own, admitted these princi- 
ples, to which he added a colouring, and an odorous, and an albu- 
minous matter, and also several different salts. Thenard assigned 
to the bile of the ox the following constituents — resin, picromel, 
a yellow animal matter, soda, and divers salts. He obtained the 
same results after examining the bile of several other animals. 
Berzelius, on the contrary, pretends to have ascertained that the 
bile contains neither resin nor picromel. Independently of several 
salts existing in the blood, he admits of the presence of a biliary 
matter, a peculiar substance not azoted and bitter, but leaving be- 
hind it a sweetish taste, and which has the same relation as fibrine, 
the colouring matter, and the albumen of the blood, at the expense 
of which it is formed in the liver. The researches of Prout agree 
with those of Berzelius in the principal points. The results of 
those which have been made still more lately by Chevreul, Che- 
valier, and Lassaigne, on the composition of the bile in the human 
being, and the inferior animals, in some respects are similar, and, 
in others, quite contrary to those of Thenard. These philosophers 
have particularly dwelt on the presence of picromel, a substance 
which Orfila, Laugier, and Ceventon, have also found in the 
biliary calculi of men. 
This difference of opinion, say Messrs. Tiedemann and Gmelin, 
renders it necessary to submit this fluid to a new analysis. 
This analysis is instituted on the bile of the ox, the dog, and 
the human being. It will be sufficient to state the results with 
regard to the two first. 
After all these experiments, say these excellent physiologists, 
we admit the following substances as the principal constituents of 
the bile of the ox : — 
1. An odoriferous principle which is lost in the distillation. 
2. The choline, or biliary fatty matter, or cholesterine. 
3. The resinous biliary matter. 
4. The biliary asparagine. 
5. The picromel. 
