=The Liver.=--This large, chocolate-colored gland is located just beneath the diaphragm on the right side (Fig. 90, colored Fig. 6). It is on a level with the stomach, which it partly overlaps in front. The liver has three important functions: (1) _It is a storeroom_; digested sugar and starch are stored in it as a substance called _liver starch_ (or glȳ′cogen). (2) _It is a guardian_, and destroys poisonous substances which may be swallowed, and which would otherwise enter the blood. Twice as much morphine or other poison is necessary to kill a man when it is taken by the mouth and passes through the liver as when it is injected through the skin. Alcohol, morphine, coffee, and drugs are partly burned up in the liver. (3) _It is a gland_, and secretes bile. The bile is made chiefly from waste products and impurities in the blood; it is an excretion. Although an excretion, it is of use on its way out of the body. It is alkaline and helps to neutralize the acid in the chyme; it excites the peristalsis, or wavelike motion, of the intestines, and it aids the pancreatic juice to emulsify the fats. [Illustration: FIG. 99.--DIAGRAM OF TRUNK to show the many folds of the PERITONEUM supporting the liver, stomach, and intestines.] =The large intestine, or colon=, is about two and one half inches in diameter and five feet long. _The small intestine joins it in the lower right side of the abdomen_ (Fig. 90). There is a fold, or valve, at the juncture, and just below the juncture there is a tube attached to the large intestine, called the _appendix_, which sometimes becomes inflamed, causing a disease called _appendicitis_ (Figs. 90, 98). The appendix is a vestigial (_vestigium_, trace) or rudimentary organ, long since useless. _Absorption_ of the watery part of the food continues in the colon, but the colon secretes no digestive fluid. The undigested and innutritious parts of the food are regularly cast out of the colon.[7] The _peritone′um_ is a membrane with many folds that supports the food tube (Fig. 99). [7] No truly refined person will allow business, pleasure, haste, or neglect to interfere with regular attention to emptying the colon. This is more necessary for real cleanliness than regular baths.