BILE is a liquid of a yellowish-green colour, an unctuous feel, bitter taste, and peculiar smell, which is secreted by the liver; and in most animals considerable quantities of it are usually found collected in the gall bladder. Great attention has been paid to this liquid by physicians ; because the ancients were accustomed to ascribe a very great number of diseases, and even affections of the mind, to its agency. The specific gravity of bile seems to vary, like that of all other ani. mal fluids. When strongly agitated, it lathers like soap ; and for this reason, as well as from a medical theory concerning its use, it has been often called an ani mal soap. Ir mixes readily with water in Any proportion, and assumes a yellow co lour ; nut it refuses to unite with oil when the two fluids are agitated together; the instant that they are left at rest the oil separates, and swims on the surface. Bile, however, dissolves a portion of soap readily, and is often employed to free cloth from greasy spots. When muriatic acid is poured upon bile, let it be ever so fresh, an odour of sulphureted hydrogen gas is constantly exhaled. When on 100 parts of ox bile, 4 parts of strong muriatic acid are poured, the whole instantly co agulates: but in some hours the greater part becomes again fluid ; and when passed through the filtre, it leaves 0.26 of a white matter, which has all the pro perties of albumen. Thenard, by a care ful and repeated analysis of ox bile, found that 800 parts of it yielded the following ingredients.
Water 700 Resin 43 Saccharine matter . 41 Albumen 4 Soda 4 Muriate of soda . . . 3.2 Sulphate of soda . . . 0.8 Phosphate of soda . . . 2.0 Phosphate of lime . . . 1.2 Oxide of iron 0.5 799.7 When bile is distilled in a water-bath, it affords a transparent watery liquor, which contracts a pretty strong odour, not unlike that of musk or amber, espe cially if the bile has been kept for some days before it is submitted to distillation.
Bile, exposed to a temperature be. tween 65° and 75°, soon loses its colour and viscidity-, acquires a nauseous smell, and deposits whitish mucilaginous flakes. After the putrefaction has made con siderable progress, its smell becomes sweet, and resembles amber. If bile be heated, and slightly concentrated by eva poration, it may be kept formany months without alteration.
The principal use of the bile seems to be, to separate the excrement from the chyle, after both have been formed, and to produce the evacuation of the excre ment out of the body. It is probable that these substances would remain mixed to gether, and that they would perhaps even be partly absorbed together, were it not for the bile, which seems to com bine with the excrement, and by this combination to facilitate its separation from the chyle, and thus to prevent its absorption. Fourcroy supposes that the bile, as soon as it is mixed with the eon:, tents of the intestinal canal, suffers a de composition ; that its alkali and saline in gredients combine with the chyle, and render it more liquid, while its albumen and resin combine with the excrementi tious matter, and gradually render them less fluid. From the late experiments of Berzelius on feces, it cannot be doubted that the constituents of the bile are to be found in the excrementitious matter; so that the ingenious theory of Fourcroy is so far probable. The bile also stimulates the intestinal canal, and causes it to eva cuate its contents sooner than it other wise would do ; for when there is a de ficiency of bile, the body is constantly costive.