STUDIES ON THE LONGITUDINAL MUSCLE OF THE HUMAN COLON, WITH 

 SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TAENIAE. 



By Paul E. Lineback. 



The presence and arrangement of taeniae in the colon of some domestic animals, 

 as well as of man, are striking and distinctive. The relationship between these 

 bands and nutritional habits (i. e., kind of food eaten, manner in which it is taken 

 and utilized, and type of feces discharged) attracts more than passing notice. For 

 example, the horse and the cow eat the same kind of food; presuming that it goes 

 into the caecum in the same state in both animals, the horse passes it through a 

 colon having four taeniae, while the cow passes it through a colon having none, and 

 the type of feces discharged by one is entirely different from that discharged by the 

 other. Man and pig are omnivorous animals, having a broader range of food supply 

 than any other types. Both will take and utilize animal and vegetable food, cooked 

 or raw, and the types of feces are very similar; but the structure of the colon and the 

 arrangement of the taeniae are quite different in the two species. The pig is supplied 

 with only two bands in a long, double, spiral colon, whereas in man there are three 

 bands in a rather simple loop of large bowel. 



A further study of this relationship between the taeniae and the nature of the 

 bowel-content might be carried on with interest. Especially would the physiologi- 

 cal aspect of both the taeniae and the sacculations bear further investigation. But 

 back of these peculiar phenomena with their physiological aspects is the problem 

 of the production of taeniae, their origin, development, and nature. Since the human 

 colon as a whole is more simple and primitive, ontogenetically, than the colon of 

 domestic animals, a study of the taeniae here would seem to offer fewer difficulties 

 and promise some definite results. At a meeting of the Anatomical Association in 

 New Haven (1915), and again in New York (1916), I gave reports of work done on 

 the colon and taeniae of the pig; and in 1916 I published in the American Journal 

 of Anatomy (vol. 20, p. 483) an article on the development of the pig's colon. This 

 paper is a report of further studies based upon these subjects, together with work 



done on the human colon. 



LITERATURE. 



The literature does not offer much in the way of setting forth the origin and 

 development of the taeniae. Such references as are found, with a few exceptions, are 

 mainly only a mention of the bands when the wall of the colon is discussed. Thus 

 they are cited by Meckel (1817), Kolliker (1854), Barth (1866), and Brand (1877); 

 but in 1882 Baginsky made a brief statement concerning them which has a definite 

 embryological bearing. In Archivfur palhologische Analomie (vol. 89, p. 90) he wrote: 



"Wahrend die aussere Muskelschicht nur eine diinne Lage darbietet, die an 3 Stellen 

 einer dichten Anhaufung von Muskelfasern Platz macht. So ist schon deutlich die Anlage 

 der Tanien des Colon markirt." 



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