Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/655

 BILE 635 tial. 3. When bile is missing in the bowels (and flowing out of the body by a fistula), the principal cause of death is the loss of fat and of albuminous matters. We will add to this last conclusion that, according to Dr. Brown- Sequard, it would be very important to repeat the experiments of Blondlot, Bidder, and oth- ers, in trying to repair by food the loss of cer- tain materials of the body which go out with bile, and which are not present in sufficient amount in meat and bread. Among these ma- terials sulphur is the principal, and it would be easy to give a great deal of it by feeding the animals upon eggs and other kinds of food which contain more sulphur than meat and bread. This view of Dr. Brown-Sequard is grounded not only on the fact that bile flowing out of the body takes away a great quantity of sulphur and other principles, but also that when hile passes freely into the bowels, its ele- ments, and particularly soda and sulphur, ac- cording to Liebig, are absorbed. A question which is intimately connected with that we have examined already concerning the impor- tance of bile, is whether this liquid is to be considered as an excrement or as a useful se- cretion. It appears to be certain that some, at least, of the principles of bile are absorbed in the bowels, if not most of them, as Liebig thought, and that therefore bile cannot be said to be entirely an excrement. However, some of the compound constituents of bile are trans- formed in the bowels, as Mulder and Frerichs have shown, and they are expelled with the fecal matters. We are consequently led to con- clude that bile is only partly an excrement, if it is so at all. We say if it is so, because the part of it which is expelled with the fecal matters may have some use before being expelled. The fact that there is a very great quantity of bile secreted in a day throws some light on the question of its reabsorption. Blondlot says that a dog of a medium size secretes from 40 to 50 grammes (nearly 1J ounce) a day. Nasse and Plainer speak of 200 grammes (6J ounces) as the secretion of bile in a dog weighing 10 kilogrammes (22 Ibs.), which gives a propor- tion of 1 to 50. Bidder and Schmidt have found that the quantity of bile varies extremely with the species of the animal experimented upon. While for each 2 pounds of the body of a cat there is a secretion of 14 grammes ($ ounce) of bile in a day, in the dog there is almost 20 grammes (f ounce), in the sheep 25 grammes (f ounce), and in the rabbit the enormous quan- tity of 136 grammes (4J ounces). In weigh- ing the solid residue of the fecal matters of a dog for many days, and comparing the result obtained in so doing to the weight of the solid residue of bile during the same time, Bidder and Schmidt have found that the two quantities were nearly alike, so that necessarily a good part of the principles of bile is absorbed in the bow- els. They have also ascertained that almost all the sulphur of the bile is absorbed. They think that only a small quantity of bile, trans- formed into an insoluble substance (dyslysine), remains unabsorbed and goes out with the ex- crements. Sylvius do la Boe, and afterward Boerhaave, imagined that bile is employed to neutralize the product of gastric digestion, chyme, which is very acid. This view has been considered quite wrong by almost every one, but Lehmarin justly remarks that there is some truth in it, and he affirms that bile cer- tainly contributes to the neutralization of the free acids of chyme. Bile no doubt acts as a solvent of fat, at least by one of its constitu- ents, the choleato of soda, as has been shown by Strecker, although Bidder and Schmidt have found no difference in the quantity of fat ab- sorbed, whether the bowels contained bile or not. But their mode of deciding this question is open to many objections. It has been said that bile prevents putrefaction taking place in chyme, or at least in fecal matters. Most of the recent experimenters agree with Tiede- mann and Gmelin in admitting this influence of bile. Dr. Porchat has observed, in children in whom bile cquld not pass in the bowels on account of the occlusion of the bile duct, that the fecal matters were putrefied, as Bid- der and Schmidt, Frerichs, and others, have observed in animals in which they had tied this duct. However, it seems that in some cases the absence of bile is not sufficient to al- low putrefaction to take place in the fecal mat- ters, as Blondlot says that he has observed no difference between these matters in dogs in good health and in those operated upon. The water contained in bile helps in the dissolution of certain elements of chyme, and in so doing renders their absorption more easy. Bile acts as an excitant on the mucous membrane of the bowels, to produce reflex contractions, favor- ing in this way the propulsion of food and of fecal matters. According to Schiff, bile pro- duces contractions in the intestinal villi. It is said also that bile increases the secretion of the intestinal mucus, and prevents constipa- tion. All these views may be partly true, but it is certain that without bile the expulsion of fecal matters takes place regularly. Many physiologists think that bile, like most of the secretions, contains some effete matters which cannot be of any use in the blood, or which might bo deleterious. In opposition to the views of those who admit that the secretion of bile is for the purpose of purifying the blood, and who still regard this liquid merely as an effete carbonaceous matter which the respiration has not removed, Lehmann says that the bile a secretion by no means poor in ni- trogen and hydrogen is not separated in any increased quantity when the process of oxida- tion in the lungs happens to be disturbed ; that there are no pathologico-anatomical facts which favor the view that the liver can act vicarious- ly for the lungs ; and, lastly, that the separa- tion of carbon by the liver, as compared with that by the lungs, is so trifling, as shown by Bidder and Schmidt, that the liver can hardly