INTERNAL OR MUCOUS COAT. 37 



attachment to the latter, will be seen on close inspection, to be 

 by means of a substratum of delicate cellular tissue. 



The internal coat of the stomach in the dead subject is com- 

 monly of a whitish color, with a tinge of red. It is rfamed 

 villous, from its supposed resemblance to the surface of velvet. 

 It has also been called fungous, because the processes analo- 

 gous to the villi are extremely short, and its surface has a 

 granulated appearance ; differing in these respects from the 

 internal surface of the intestines. It is continued from the 

 lining membrane of the oesophagus, but is very different in its 

 structure. Many very small vessels seem to enter into its 

 texture, which are derived from branches that ramify in the 

 nervous coat. It is supposed by several anatomists of the 

 highest authority, to have a cuticle or epithelium ; and it is said 

 that such a membrane has been separated by disease. It ought, 

 however, to be remembered, that the structure of the villous 

 coat of the stomach and intestines, is essentially different from 

 the structure of the cuticle. 



The internal coat of the stomach is generally found covered, 

 or spread over with mucus, which can be readily scraped off. 

 This mucus is certainly effused upon it by secreting organs, and 

 it has been supposed that there were small glandular bodies 

 exterior to the villous coat, which furnished this secretion ; but 

 the existence of such bodies is very doubtful, as many skillful 

 anatomists hvae not met with any appearance that could be 

 taken for glands, except in a very few instances, which would 

 not be the case if those appearances had been natural. Pores, 

 perhaps the orifices of mucous follicles, and also of exhalent 

 vessels, are very numerous, but no proper glandular masses 

 are attached to them. Glands, as has been already said, are 

 found in the triangular spaces between the lamina of the 

 peritoneum at the great and small curvatures of the stomach, 

 but these evidently belong to the absorbent system.* Besides 



* The mucous coat of the stomach is, in its healthy state, thinner, softer, and 

 more vascular in the cardiac half of the stomach, than in the pyloric. The 

 villi or papilli as they are more properly called are better developed in the 

 pyloric region. The place of glands in the stomach is supplied mainly by 

 muciparous follicles, which are microscopical in regard to size. In pathological 

 VOL. II. 4 



