CHAPTER XVIII 



THE REGULATION OF A FACTORY FOR THE PREPARATION 

 OF TISSUE-FUEL 



We have dallied so long over the manner in which food 

 is transported from the mouth to the stomach that the 

 reader may well have forgotten the fact that we have a 

 patient in front of us. By the aid of an X-ray outfit we 

 are watching him as he consumes a pint of porridge 

 impregnated with a harmless bismuth salt. He began 

 at 8 a.m. prompt, and ten seconds later we saw the first 

 spoonful enter his stomach, where it gradually spread 

 downwards until it reached almost to the level of the 

 navel or umbilicus. As bolus follows bolus quite a large 

 shadow grows in the region above the navel — in the 

 epigastric area, the lower border being rounded and 

 rather irregular in outline, while its upper border, which 

 continues to mount, is straight and level (fig. 39). It 

 is evident that the stomach is filling, and at the end of 

 ten minutes, when the dish is emptied, our friend informs 

 us that he feels comfortably full. We know his stomach 

 has not nearly reached the limit of its capacity ; it is an 

 accommodating muscular organ into which two or three 

 pints of porridge, or even more, can be safely packed, but 

 it is full enough for our present purpose. No sooner 

 has the food arrived than the stomach pulls itself together, 

 as it were, and sets to work upon the part of the meal 

 which has descended to its lower or pyloric part, thus 

 lying near the exit or further gateway of the stomach — 

 the pylorus. The stomach is merely a great dilatation or 

 enlargement of the simple tube-like part of the alimentary 



1S1 



