10 ORGANS OF DIGESTION. 



food or faeces. The large intestine is, however, more frequent- 

 ly found contracted or empty than the small. Owing to the 

 flexible character of a considerable portion of the abdominal pa- 

 rietes, the latter, by their own contraction, as well as by atmo- 

 spheric pressure, are kept in close contact with the viscera; and 

 the viscera again, by the same influence, are kept in close con- 

 tact with one another; so that, notwithstanding the irregularity 

 of their forms and the fluctuating size of the hollow ones, there 

 is no unoccupied space in the cavity of the belly. 



Several instances are reported by anatomists, in which a to- 

 tal transposition of the abdominal viscera, has occurred, so that 

 those which belonged to the right side were placed in the left.* 

 They are, however, exceedingly rare. In the entire observation 

 of my life, amounting to twenty-seven years of anatomical stu- 

 dy, and extending itself to many hundred bodies, I have never 

 met with one instance of it. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF THE PERITONEUM, AND SEROUS MEMBRANES, GENERALLY. 

 SECT. I. OF THE PERITONEUM. 



THE sides of the abdomen are lined, and its viscera are co- 

 vered by a membrane called Peritoneum. As the reflections of 

 this membrane, by being thrown over the periphery of almost 

 every viscus of the abdomen, consequently, assume the same 

 shape; and as it lines, without exception, the interior surface of 

 'every part of the abdomen, its form is extremely complicated, 

 and can only be judged of accurately after the study of the 

 viscera is completed. For the present it will only be necessa- 

 ry to give the outline of it, leaving the details to each appropriate 

 occasion. 



* Portal, Haller, Sandifort, Sec. 



