SummaryA study was made of the effects of anaesthesia with pentobarbital and urethane on the bile secretion and the chemical composition of the blood of New Zealand rabbits. Neither of the agents was observed to affect arterial pH or p02' but with urethane pC02 values decreased significantly. This was assoeiated with a pronounced hyperglycaemia. Bile flow was significantly higher in pentobarbital-anaesthetized animals than in urethane-anaesthetized animals, a phenomenon that can be attributed to a different canalicular flow and that will not be related to differences in the bile-aeid-dependent fraction of secretioQ. Under both anaesthetics, bile sodium concentrations were greater than those found in plasma, which can be explained by the formation of micelles with low osmotic activity. Bile bicarbonate concentrations proved to be greater than those observed in plasma. Plasma caleium concentrations were significantly lower with urethane than with pentobarbital, whereas in bile the situation was reversed; both these aspects are discussed.Keywords: Anaesthesia, general; Pentobarbital; Urethane; Bile; Blood; Rabbits Anaesthetics have several effects on the structure and functioning of numerous organs and biological systems and such effects have been the subject of diverse research work; the possible modifications that these compounds may induce in biliary secretion have received little attention, however. This is rather paradoxical in view of the fact that numerous experiments in hepatic physiology and