186 PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER ADDISON. 



To the right of the left psoas, as a rule, the remaining part of 

 the intestine presents a perpendicular arrangement, which he 

 describes as most constant. He gives in general to the upper 

 horizontal coils two-fifths of the small intestine, to the middle 

 irregular coils one-fifth, and to the lower vertical coils the re- 

 maining two-fifths. When the intestine is cut away close to its 

 mesenteric attachment in the hardened preparations, the 

 margin of the mesentery presents still the corresponding bends 

 of the intestinal loops. 



Mall (19) in his researches recorded the position of the 

 intestinal loops in 41 hardened bodies. He confirms the de- 

 scription of the arrangement of the intestine in that its general 

 direction is diagonally across the abdomen " from the left 

 hypochondriac space towards the right iliac fossa, usually 

 diverging once, or sometimes twice, towards the right side of 

 the abdomen and always towards its end, into the cavity of the 

 pelvis." He found also that the left upper jejunal coils had 

 generally a horizontal direction, and the right lower loops, 

 especially the pelvic, had a perpendicular arrangement. In 21 

 of his specimens he found what he describes as the normal 

 arrangement, in which " the jejunum first arranged itself into 

 two distinct groups of loops situated well up in the left hypo- 

 chondriac region. Each group made more than a complete 

 circle, and both of them came in contact with the anterior 

 abdominal wall. . . . After this the intestine passes through the 

 umbilical region to the right side of the body. . . . Then the in- 

 testine recrosses the median line to make a few convolutions 

 in the left iliac fossa, after which it fills the pelvis and lower 

 abdominal cavities between the psoas muscles." 



The commonest variation he found was that in which there 

 were no coils on the right side of the peritoneal cavity. (This 

 agrees with what has been found in the specimens recorded in 

 this paper.) 



The next commonest variation consisted in some of the upper 

 left jejunal coils passing over to the right whilst the next part 

 of the intestine — usually situated on the right side — was dis- 

 placed to the left. 



In the diagrams of the 40 adult subjects examined in this 

 research, the drawing of the small intestinal line was often 



