THE FORM OF THE HUMAN STOMACH 487 



external grooves of the stomach are so designated (sulcus inter- 

 medins, sulcus pyloricus), and it is undesirable to name a part of 

 the stomach oesophageal or salival. Therefore the term gastric 

 canal, 'canalis gastricus,' is here proposed, and canalis is used as 

 in Latin for an open canal, which in this case may become a tube 

 during its physiological activity, by the approximation of its 

 lips. 



The gastric canal has long been known in ruminants, but in 

 its less highly developed condition in the human stomach, it 

 has attracted little attention. In man it is generally supposed to 

 be due to the arrangement of the oblique muscle fibers, which were 

 first described by Willis (1674), in connection with a figure of the 

 stomach in the position shown in figure 1. The 'top' of the 

 stomach is accordingly toward the lesser curvature, and the 'fun- 

 dus' is toward the greater curvature. Willis wrote as follows: 



These muscle fibers, which are seen to arise behind the cardia and to 

 pass around its left margin, are carried forward to the right portion of 

 the stomach. A notable bundle of them, proceeding in straight lines 

 along the top of the stomach on either side, encounters the antrum, and 

 spreading over the length of its cavity in a scattered manner, terminates 

 in the pylorus. Moreover the remaining fibers of this layer extend 

 obliquely over the walls of the stomach on both sides, and then directly 

 toward the fundus where they come together. The function of the for- 

 mer (the straight bundles) seems to be to bring one orifice toward the 

 other in emptying, by making them lower and higher respectively (ed. 

 of 1680, pp. 11-12). 



Retzius called attention to this description by Willis and, as 

 reported by Gyllenskoeld (1862), he supplemented it as follows: 



The upper portion of the oblique fibers of the human stomach serves 

 to form a sort of trough along the lesser curvature which, under the con- 

 trol of the motor nerves, becomes more or less closed; along this path 

 possibly fluids and soft things, saliva, etc., may proceed directly from the 

 oesophagus to the pars pylorica, passing by the cardiac portion, which 

 corresponds to the first two stomachs of ruminants and the non-glan- 

 dular part of the stomach in rats. 



The correctness of this conjecture concerning the passage of 

 fluids was established by Cohnheim (1908), who was surprised 



