Bile
an animal fluid secreted by the liver. It is collected from venous and not from arterial blood. It is a viscid, transparent liquid of a very deep yellow or greenish color, darkening by exposure to the air. Its odor is disagreeable; its taste nauseous and bitter. It has an alkaline reaction. When the bile is elaborated in the liver, it is received from the secreting vessels by very minute tubes, which, uniting, form the hepatic duct. The bile is conveyed into the gall bladder by means of the cystic, or into the duodenum by the choledoch duct; that which makes its way into the former receptacle is called the cystic bile, and that which enters the latter the hepatic bile. Cystic bile is deeper in color and more viscid, pungent, and bitter than hepatic bile. One main use of bile is to convert chyme into chyle as one step in the process of digestion.
BILED-UL-GERID (-jer'id), a tract of north Africa, lying between the S. declivity of Atlas and the Great Desert, noted for the production of date-palms.