360 THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM 



THE CARDIAC GLANDS. A narrow region, about 5 millimeters in 

 width, at the cardiac orifice of the human stomach contains glands 

 whose form corresponds with that of the fundus glands, though they 

 are slightly more branched and are rather more tortuous, but which 

 are lined by relatively clear columnar epithelium. Only occasionally 

 are the chief and the parietal cells, which are characteristic of the fundus 

 glands, interspersed among the clear secreting cells of these tubules. 

 The cardiac glands, therefore, appear to offer a transition from the 

 esophageal to the more numerous fundus glands of the stomach. In 

 certain mammals, e.g., the pig and the Marsupialia, the cardiac glands 

 occupy a much larger area. 



THE CORIUM. The corium of the mucosa consists of a delicate 

 fibroreticular connective tissue which supports the blood and lymphatic 

 vessels and is more or less infiltrated with lymphocytes. Hence in many 

 portions it possesses the character of diffuse lymphoid tissue, though this 

 tissue is characteristic of the interglandular rather than the interfoveolar 

 portion of the tunica propria. In the latter situation, in sharp contrast 

 to the intestinal villi with which the student may confound this region, 

 the corium is decidedly fibrous and contains relatively few lymph 

 corpuscles. 



In the deeper part of the mucosa occasional small lymph nodules, 

 homologues of the solitary follicles of the intestine, are seen. These 

 nodules ('lenticular glands'] lie just within the muscularis mucosas 

 and do not, as a rule, penetrate into the submucosa. In the cardiac 

 region they may lie very near the free surface of the mucosa. 



Blood Supply. The large blood-vessels, derived from the branches 

 of the celiac axis, enter through the subserous connective tissue of the 

 omentum and form arches at the greater and lesser curvatures of the 

 stomach. 



From these arches, arteries lying in the subserous connective tissue 

 are distributed to the ventral and dorsal surfaces of the gastric wall. 

 These vessels supply branches which penetrate the muscular coat, giving 

 off, on the way, arterioles to the intramuscular septum, and secondarily 

 to the intramuscular capillary plexus, and spread out in the areolar 

 tissue of the submucosa in which they form an extensive arterial plexus. 

 Branches from this submucous plexus enter the mucous membrane and 

 form a dense capillary plexus whose elongated meshes inclose the se- 

 creting glands. 



Near the surface of the mucosa these vessels enter a plexus of small 

 venules which, by union, form larger branches and convey the blood 



