It has been impossible to correlate laboratory and clinical experience in relation to bile peritonitis because of the striking contradictions in data obtained from the two sources. These contrasting data have not been understood, yet the results of laboratory experiments have been applied to the clinical problem. The results have been incomprehensible, because the two methods of study are incompatible for this subject. CONTINUOUS EXTRAVASATION OF STERILE BILE Recently, Wangensteen,1 Horrall,2 Rewbridge3 and others repeated and elaborated on the experiments of earlier workers, and showed that large quantities of sterile bile poured continuously into the peritoneal cavity of an animal will produce death within from six to seventy-two hours. In most of these experiments long incisions or large apertures were cut in the gallbladder or the bile duct, and the abdomen was sutured tightly. Thus Bohn,4 in 1775, removed the gallbladder in dogs without ligating the