ACUTE DUODENAL INDIGESTION IN CHILDREN

The relation between the physiology of digestion and the diseases of the gastro-intestinal canal has received considerable attention in recent years and has thrown much light on many obscure digestive disturbances. A large part of our knowledge about bile and the effects of obstruction to the flow of the bile, comes from animal experiments and there is only a relatively small amount of literature on the physiology and pathology of bile which has been applied to infancy and childhood. A résumé of these facts is necessary because they explain much that, otherwise, is obscure in the treatment of acute duodenal indigestion, and give a physiologic foundation for our conception of the pathologic processes to be studied. They naturally divide themselves into physiology of bile, biochemistry of bile and its products of decomposition, and the action of bile during digestion. PHYSIOLOGY Bile varies not only in amount, but also as regards