As the compounds of fatty acids with ammoniacal blood gelatine and sodium carbonate, the ingredients of the bile also, develop into a peculiar soap.  In the economy of the body the bile acts as a soap.  When it is discharged into the duodenum, it changes the fats into so fine an emulsion (chyle) that the microscopically fine drops of fat may be drawn into the orifices of the lymph canals and conveyed to the circulatory system, and the cleavage products of albumen produced by gastric digestion, the peptones (leucin and tyrosin) are carried along with them for the renewal of tissue cells consumed in respiration.

If a soda soap is requisite for the purpose just stated, it follows that soda in the food is essential, as otherwise the supply of soda in the blood albumen cannot be renewed, and the bile cannot get its necessary supply of soda from blood albumen devoid of soda.  Consequently, the entire nutritive process is dependent upon bile, and the bile cannot properly perform its function if denied soda.

In addition to carbonates of sodium, especially the hydrocarbonate known as glycolate, the bile apparently contains ammonium sulphate combined with hydrocarbon (taurin); but this results from the transposition of sodium sulphate and gelatine.  Gelatine contains six atoms of hydrocarbon joined with two of ammonium carbonate, a group which is separable by chemical action into five of carburetted hydrogen with ammonium carbonate (leucin or gelatine milk), C_{5} H_{10}, CO_{2}, NH_{3}, and into one of carburetted hydrogen with ammonium carbonate (glycin or gelatine sugar), CH_{2}, CO_{2}, NH_{3}.  This latter substance, gelatine sugar, is not produced in the liver, as it exists already in the blood gelatine.  In an isolated condition it has the property, in virtue of its ammoniacal acids and its carbonic acid bases and, therefore, of both combined, its salts, of producing chemical fixation.  This property is conveyed to the undivided blood gelatine in which the gelatine sugar is contained intramolecularly.

Since normal blood albumen is inconceivable without sulphur it is absolutely essential, in accordance with our knowledge of the constituents of the bile and their origin, that our nutriment should contain a sufficiency of sodium sulphate, if normal blood serum is to be produced.  The use of pepsin for this purpose cannot serve nature’s purpose, as it contains neither sodium carbonate nor sodium sulphate.  Our blood must be given a fresh and sufficient supply of sodium carbonate and sodium sulphate via our food, if it is to produce normal bile and supply the requisites of normal nutrition.

It is erroneously held that sodium sulphate is simply a laxative, even Borner’s “Royal Medical Calendar” so classifies it.  Often it discharges this function, it is true, in concentrated solution (one to five).  But it is an important ingredient of healthy blood albumen (one to one thousand), and in this proportion assists in the formation of normal bile.