It is allowed on all sides that the bile is a fluid of great importance in the digestive process, but what part it actually plays in this process has not yet been fully ascertained. Of its uses we are more convinced when by some accident, such as the plugging of the bile duct by a stone, or when the flow of the bile is diverted outside the body by an operation, it ceases to be excreted into the duodenum. In these cases when no bile passes into the duodenum the patient or animal emaciates rapidly, and may even die of inanition. As far as we know at present the action of the bile is to emulsify the fats in the food, and to precipitate or throw down from the chyle all the partially digested and undigested particles; it also exercises an antiseptic action on the food-mass in its long passage through the intestines. If the bile is deficient or is withdrawn entirely, the food undergoes putrefactive changes in the intestine, with the production of flatus and putrescent odours.