WORK UPON VISCERAL AND ALLIED NERVES. 47 



the earlier literature, Houckgeest^ confirms and extends 

 previous observations upon the innervation of the stomach. 

 He concludes that both right and left vagi contain fibres 

 stimulation of which leads to an increase in the movements 

 of the stomach, and that the two splanchnics contain in- 

 hibitory fibres to the stomach muscles. 



Openchowski " in two papers describes the results of 

 his experiments upon the central and peripheral innervation 

 of the stomach. His method consists of the introduction 

 of a sound carrying an elastic bag into the stomach. The 

 bag is brought into different positions in the pylorus, the 

 cardiac orifice or the cavity of the stomach, and by being 

 connected with a recording tambour tracings of the move- 

 ments of the different parts may be obtained. He con- 

 cludes that the different parts possess a power of rhythmic 

 contraction which, however, is modified by nervous im- 

 pulses reaching it from the brain or cord. For the cardiac 

 orifice there are two sets of fibres, one set opening the 

 other closing the orifice. The latter he describes as pass- 

 ing from a centre in the region of the posterior corpus 

 quadrigeminum by two different paths. The first and 

 chief one is via the vagus, especially the left, the second 

 down the cord and out by the anterior roots of the fifth to 

 eighth thoracic nerves inclusive, and thence by the splanch- 

 nics to the stomach. The fibres, stimulation of which leads 

 to the opening of the cardia, he describes as passing either 

 down the vagus or along the cord, to issue by the upper 

 thoracic nerves as low as the fifth and thence by the 

 splanchnics, especially the smaller. For the pyloric orifice 

 the constrictor fibres pass along the vagus and the dilator 

 fibres pass down the cord and leave it in the anterior roots 

 of the thoracic nerves above the tenth. He states that, 

 in the rabbit, there are more excito-motor fibres than in- 

 hibitory in the splanchnic, whereas in the dog the reverse 

 is the case. 



^ Pftilger's Archiv, vol. vi., p. 266, 1872. 



" Arch. f. Anat. u. Physiol.., p, 549, 1889, and Centralblatt f. Physiol.., 

 vol. iii., p. I, 1889. 



