CAVITY. 



501 



a, 



It rarely happens that we meet with an in- 

 stance in which the abdominal viscera have 

 not been more or less disturbed after death 

 from their natural relations to one another. 

 During life the contractile walls of the ab- 

 domen, ever active, maintain such a uniform 

 degree of pressure on the contained organs, 

 that displacements or alterations of positions 

 are very rare occurrences excepting through 

 some preternatural opening in the abdominal 

 parietes. It is advisable to study the positions 

 of the contents of the abdomen in a body re- 

 cently dead, and which has not experienced 

 any degree of disturbance. 



When the anterior wall of the abdomen has 

 been removed or freely laid open by a crucial 

 incision, the contents of the cavity are brought 

 into view in the following order : 



In the right hypochondriac region the liver 

 projects to a slight extent below the inferior 

 border of the chest. This, however, is not to 

 be regarded as the position of the liver during 

 life ; the descent of that organ from behind the 

 shelter of the ribs is attributable to its gravita- 

 tion in consequence of the removal of the 

 support which it obtained from the pressure of 

 the anterior abdominal wall. The liver will 

 thus be found to extend more or less into the 



proper epigastric region, covering and con- 

 cealing the lesser curvature of the stomach 

 with the gastro-hepatic omentura and the ante- 

 rior, or more correctly, the antero-superior 

 surface of the stomach to a variable extent. 

 In this region we likewise see, corresponding 

 pretty nearly to the cartilage of the ninth rib, 

 the fundus of the gall-bladder in some in- 

 stances completely covered by the liver, in 

 others projecting beyond it or only covered by 

 a duplicature of serous membrane which fills 

 up a natural notch in the liver. In the epigas- 



Fig. 204. 



trium more or less of the stomach is seen, its 

 greater curvature projecting forwards, having 

 pendent from it the middle portion of the great 

 omentum; and the left hypochondrium often 

 (especially when the stomach is full) seems to 

 be wholly occupied by the splenic extremity of 

 the stomach, immediately below which there 

 is a portion of the transverse colon, just where 

 it is forming an angle with the descending 

 colon. Sometimes the anterior margin of die 

 spleen projects before it, and sometimes a still 

 greater portion of the spleen is visible, if that 



organ be in a state of turgescence. 



Along the 



