44 PROFESSOR A. BIRMINGHAM. 



the former part. Indeed, there is often a distinct bend in this 

 surface corresponding to the anterior edge of the pancreas. 



In brief, it may be said that the stomach when empty is 

 contracted, not collapsed ; that it assumes a narrow attenuated 

 shape, its cavity being practically obliterated, and its pyloric 

 portion contracted to the size of small intestine ; and in addi- 

 tion, that its long axis lies in an almost horizontal plane. 

 With distension, there comes a general enlargement of the 

 various diameters, an elongation of the whole stomach, with a 

 consequent passage of its pyloric portion to the right beneath 

 the liver, the development of the antrum pylori, and a general 

 inclination of the organ from behind downwards and forwards 

 without any rotation. 



Surfaces. — There is little doubt, considering the position of the 

 empty stomach, that its two surfaces should be called superior 

 and inferior, rather than anterior and posterior respectively. 

 The superior is the more convex and the more extensive of the 

 two. 



If the attachment of the lesser omentum be traced towards 

 the cardia, it will be found to wind gradually on to the upper 

 surface, so that the oesophagus joins the stomach rather on its 

 upper surface than at the lesser curvature (as I pointed out in 

 a former paper i). 



The stomach chamber and stomach led. — (These I have- 

 already described in a former issue of the Journal : the following 

 description may be given after a more extended study of the 

 hardened body.) 



The portion of the abdominal cavity in which the stomach 

 lies has such definite boundaries and such constant surround- 

 ings that it seems to merit the title of stomach chamber, 

 particularly as the boundaries or walls of the space — which is 

 completely filled by the distended stomach — do not collapse 

 when the stomach is empty, but maintain the form of the 

 cavity, which then becomes occupied by the transverse colon 

 — as a rule— which doubles up over the stomach when this 

 latter is empty. 



The chamber presents an arched roof, un irregular sloping 

 floor, and an anterior wall. The roof is formed on the right 

 ^. foil null of Anatomy cmd Physiology, October 1896. 



