THE ALIMENTARY CANAL. 



81 



the whole and, after a short maceration, or, as frequently happens 

 in the dead subject, spontaneously, may be readily stripped off in 

 large white sheets, either F - lg9 



alone, or accompanied by 

 adherent portions of the 

 deeper layers. The proper 

 mucous membrane, measur- 

 ing on the average 03'", 

 possesses numerous conical 

 papilla of 0-04 — O05"' in 

 length, and consists of ordi- 

 nary connective tissue, with 

 fine elastic fibres, among 

 which, however, as Briicke 

 and I have ascertained, a great quantity of longitudinal bundles 

 of smooth muscles, and in addition, more isolated groups of 

 ordinary fat cells and small racemose mucous glands, may be 

 observed. 



The oesophagus- is moderately provided with lymphatics and 

 blood-vessels ; the latter send loops into the papilla and form 

 at their bases, a not very wide network, like that in the pharynx. 

 Nerves may also be met with in considerable numbers in the 

 mucous membrane, containing fine fibres of O0012"' — 00015'", 

 but I have not yet succeeded in tracing them into the papilla, 

 nor in observing divisions, nor the modes in which they ter- 

 minate. 



Literature. — C.Th.Tourtual/NeueUntersuchungen iiber den 

 Bau des Menschlichen Schlund-und Kehlkopfes/ Leipzig, 1846. 



OF THE ALIMENTARY CANAL. 



§ 146. 



Those parts which constitute what may, more strictly speak- 

 ing, be called the alimentary canal, are the least fixed of all 

 which compose the alimentary tract and are almost invariably 

 attached by special membranous bands — the mesenteria — in the 

 great cavity of the abdomen, lined by the peritonaeum. With 



Fig. 199. Muscular-fibre cells from the oesophageal mucous membrane of the Pig, 

 after being treated with nitric acid of 20 per cent., x 15. 



ii. 6 



