The relation between bile-secretion and bile-pressure

Abstract

In the course of our work on the pressure of bile secretion in different animals, Herring and the author 1 found that in some cases the rate of bile flow was greater after the pressure was removed than it had been at the beginning of the experiment. The cystic duct having been clamped, a cannula was tied into the common bile duct and connected by means of rubber tubing to a drop recorder which marked the rate of bile flow on a slowly moving drum. A vertical glass tube mounted on a millimeter scale was introduced by means of a T-piece between the bile duct and the drop-recorder, so that by closing the exit to the drop-recorder the pressure of the secretion could be observed in terms of a column of bile.

In the course of some observations which I have since been making on bile pressure in the sheep, using the same method, I have observed on several occasions that after the bile had risen to its maximum height in the manometer, when the clamp was removed from the outflow tube the rate of flow was much greater than it had been before the pressure began to be recorded and that this increased rate of flow was maintained for a considerable time.