[Footnote 31: The capsules were made by Savory and Moore, and I have every reason to be satisfied with the manner in which they accomplished the object in view.]
[Footnote 32: Prepared bile, made up into an ordinary pill, dissolves in gastric juice in a quarter of an hour. When the pill is silvered it is dissolved in half an hour, and when gilded, in forty minutes. Whereas, in the same specimen of gastric juice, the capsules prepared for me by Savory and Moore, although swollen to more than three times their original size, were nevertheless intact at the end of an hour and a half. They readily broke on being gently squeezed between the finger and thumb, it is not therefore probable that they would pass the pylorus in this condition without giving way, and allowing their contents to escape.]
Each capsule contains five grains of the prepared bile; and five grains is equal to one hundred grains of liquid bile fresh from the gall-bladder. Two capsules therefore represent two hundred grains of pure bile, a quantity (though less, perhaps, than the healthy organism consumes during each digestion) which in most cases would be sufficient for the wants of the system. If, however, a larger amount be considered necessary, there is no reason why three or more capsules should not be given. By the administration of prepared bile in the manner here described, the physician is enabled to imitate nature, and { 131} supply an important element to the system; which, although incapable of curing the disease, can nevertheless ward off for a time the fatal termination.[33]
[Footnote 33: It is not alone in cases of jaundice that the prepared bile may be of service, but also in the various forms of duodenal dyspepsia, so common among the literary classes, consequent upon either a deficient quantity, or an abnormal quality of bile.]
{ 132} TABULAR VIEW OF THE PATHOLOGY OF JAUNDICE, ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR'S VIEWS.
|From |Enervation. . . . . . |Fright. |Suppression.| |Anxiety. | | |Over-mental exertion. | | |Concussion of Brain. | | | |Congestion |Active. . |Hepatitis. | |of Liver. | |Direct Violence. | | | |Dyspepsia. | | | |Ague. | | | |Typhus. | | | |Typhoid. | | | |Scarlatina. | | | |Pyæmia. | | | |Yellow Fever. | | | |Poison. Jaundice.| | | | | |Passive. |Heart Disease. | | |Pneumonia. | | |Pleurisy. | | |Imperfect Circulation | | | in the Newborn. | | | |Absence of Secreting |Cancer. | | Substance. |Cirrhosis. | |Fatty Degeneration. | |Amyloid Degeneration. | |Atrophy. |Acute. | | |Chronic. | |From |Congenital Deficiency |Small Ducts (?) |Obstruction.| of Ducts. |Common Duct. | |Accidental Obstruction|Gall-stones. | in course of Duct. |Hydatids. | |Foreign Bodies | | from Intestines. | |Closure of Outlet. . |Pressure of Pregnant | Uterus. |Impacted Fæces in | Transverse Colon. |Organic Disease of | Pancreas, or of | neighbouring Organs. |Abscess in Head of | Pancreas. |Ulcer of Duodenum.