Relationship of the constituents of bile to biliary peritonitis in the rat.

The local action of bile salts has been associated with a wide variety of gastrointestinal diseases. This paper describes an animal model to determine which of the major solid components of bile are responsible for peritoneal destruction in biliary peritonitis. In the rat, bile salts within the peritoneal cavity cause peritonitis but cholesterol and lecithin are without deleterious effect.