SARCINA VENTRICULI. 135 



anatomical changes of the gastric mucous membrane and of the 

 mucus secreted by it. 



Masses in a thoroughly digested state, and at the same time in 

 an almost putrid condition, are only vomited in cases of some 

 anatomico-mechanical change in the intestinal canal, as stran- 

 gulated hernia, volvulus, &c. Since, as we have already mentioned, 

 yeast-fungi are sometimes found in the contents of the stomach 

 and intestines partly entering from without, and partly propa- 

 gated within the body it need excite no wonder that they are 

 also found in vomited matters. The same may be said regarding 

 the sarcina, whose nature and mode of occurrence, since its dis- 

 covery by Goodsir,* have given rise to so many investigations and 

 discussions. This organised being is in all probability identical 

 with the alga, Merismopedia punctata, that had been described by 

 Meyen,f and with the Gonium tranquillum et glaucum, referred 

 by EhrenbergJ to the Bacillarise ; it forms smooth plates, con- 

 sisting of a larger or smaller number of quadrupartite cells, which 

 range from l-300th to l-500th of a line in diameter, are square, 

 and resemble tied-up packets ; these may be found singly in the 

 vomited matters, but much more frequently hanging together in 

 regular forms in fours, eights, and sixteens, so as to form larger 

 surfaces. These algse are not characteristic of any special disease 

 of the stomach, either organic or functional, although they are 

 most commonly found when the food has been retained for a 

 considerable time in the stomach before the vomiting has occurred, 

 as, for instance, in cancer of the stomach. Frerichs has frequently 

 found the sarcina in the stomach after death, in cases in which, 

 during life, no signs of deranged digestion had been observed ; 

 indeed, he even noticed it in a dog with a gastric fistula, and 

 found that the digestion went on as regularly and energetically as 

 before the appearance of these algae. It thus appears to have 

 no connexion with any pathological phenomena in the animal 

 organism. 



Hence the sarcina is of no diagnostic value, since neither its 

 production nor its growth is dependent upon, or gives rise to any 

 special morbid processes. 



Frerichs has studied its development in a dog with a gastric 

 fistula ; he observed, first of all, round non-nucleated cells, generally 



* Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal. Vol. 57, p. 430. 

 t Neues System der Pflanzen. Bd. 6, S. 410. 

 Infusorien, S. 58, Taf. 3, Fig. 3. 

 -Haser's Arch. Bd. 10, S. 175-208. 



