Anatomy of the gallbladder

The gallbladder is a sac suspended from the liver towards the stomach and consisting of a single membrane rich in nerves. It has an opening facing the liver and a duct through which juice suitable for the liver, that is, yellow bile, is drawn in. This duct adjoins the liver itself and the vessels in which blood is formed; here it has many branches penetrating deep, although the entry point of the main trunk is on the concave side of the liver. The gallbladder also has another mouth and duct that goes towards the stomach and intestines, through which excess yellow bile is sent towards these organs, as we said in Book One. Most of the branches of this duct are adjacent to the duodenum, and sometimes a small branch of them is adjacent to the bottom of the stomach, and sometimes the situation is the other way around, and the large branches associated with the thickest vessel are directed to the bottom of the stomach, and the smaller ones to the duodenum. In most people, this is a single duct adjacent to the duodenum. As for the entry point into the gallbladder of the tube that draws in bile, it is located near the entry point of the bladder tube into the bladder. The ancient physicians used to call the gallbladder the "little bag," just as they used to call the bladder the "big bag." The benefits of creating a gallbladder include cleansing the liver of foamy excess and warming it, like fuel under a boiler, as well as thinning the blood, dissolving excess, moving excrement, cleansing the intestines and tightening those of the muscles surrounding the intestines that have relaxed.

Most people have not created a path from the gall bladder to the stomach in order to wash out liquids from there with bile, just as it washes out liquids from the intestines, and this is for the reason that bile would irritate the stomach and cause nausea, and digestion in the stomach would be spoiled due to the admixture of nutrients of bad juice. From the beating vessel and from the nerve adjacent to the liver, two very small branches go to the gallbladder. The gallbladder, like the bladder, consists of one membrane, made up of fibers of all three types. If the gallbladder does not draw in bile or draws in, but does not completely cleanse the liver of it, then various damages occur. When the yellow bile becomes locked up above the gallbladder, it causes the liver to swell and produce jaundice, and sometimes it rots and produces malignant fevers. If bile flows into the urinary organs in excessive quantities, it ulcerates, and if it flows into any other organ, it causes erysipelas and herpes. If it spreads throughout the body and remains motionless, unexcited, it causes jaundice. When yellow bile flows into the intestines in excessive quantities, it produces bilious diarrhea and abrasions.