THE FORM OF THE HUMAN STOMACH 479 



The stomach, as described by Vesalius, is rounder and more 

 spacious on the left side, and more slender on the right; to which 

 Fabricius adds that it is not unlike a gourd with larger belly and 

 narrower neck. On its dorsal side Vesalius found two swellings, 

 separated by a vertical impression which was fitted against the 

 trunks of the aorta and vena cava and the projecting bodies of the 

 vertebrae. When the stomach was inflated, the impression and 

 swellings were lost in an even rotundity. It was not until Willis 

 (1674) described the pyloric antrum in the following passage, 

 that a permanent subdivision of the stomach was established. 



The other orifice, commonly called the pylorus, on the right side of 

 the stomach, having a capacious and long, gradually narrowed antrum, 

 ends in a small foramen and thence bent back is continued into the duo- 

 denum. Here the coats are much thicker than in any other part of 

 the stomach. 



Indeed the long and capacious antrum seems to be a sort of recess and 

 diverticulum in the stomach, into which the more elaborated and per- 

 fected portion of the chylous mass may withdraw and there remain, 

 while the other cruder and more recently ingested portion may be further 

 digested in the fundus of the stomach (ed. of 1680, p. 13-14) . 2 



Accompanying this description Willis published four lateral 

 views of the stomach, with its coats successively removed. All 

 of them show the antrum, but in a fifth figure, representing the 

 everted stomach, its limits are most satisfactorily indicated (fig. 

 1). In this figure the antrum is shorter and broader than in one 

 of the others, in which it has been stretched out so as to form a tube. 

 In all of the figures it is clear that the antrum extends to the pylo- 

 rus, which is referred to as its orifice. 



Bidloo (1685) published a more accurate figure of the stomach, 

 here reproduced as figure 2, but he failed to describe it adequately. 

 He states that the base is provided with two swellings, C and D. 

 In another figure, showing the same stomach partly laid open, the 

 portion of the duodenum near the stomach (A) is labelled pylo- 

 rus, but Bidloo does not refer in any way to the subdivision which 

 in figure 2 has been labelled B. Cowper (1698), who republished 



2 For verifying and revising the Latin translations, the author is under obliga- 

 tion to Mr. S. R. Meaker. 



