DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. 253 



coat, as well as the cuticular, occasionally exhibits numerous 

 rugse upon its internal surface, which disappear upon extension. 

 0/gatiization. — For no organ, with the exception of the brain, 

 has Nature made more ample provision to insure a supply of 

 blood than for this. Its arteries are — the superior gastric, which 

 is derived from the posterior aorta, and is distributed to its small 

 curvature, and upper and under surfaces ; the right and /ej't 

 gastric, which branch from the hepatic and splenic arteries, 

 and take their course along its great curvature ; besides numer- 

 ous small ramifications from the trunk of the splenic, called the 

 vasa brevia. Most of these vessels take a tortuous course, and 

 by so doing accommodate themselves to the varying volume of 

 the organ. Their ultimate distribution is to the villous lining, 

 in which they ramify to great minuteness, and exist in such 

 abundance as to render it uniformly red when injected with size 

 and vermilion. The veins, which are somewhat larger in size 

 than the arteries, and have no valves, terminate in the vena 

 portae. The stomach possesses numerous absorbents, and is well 

 supplied with nerves from the eighth pair and sympathetic. 



OF THE INTESTINES. 



The intestines are cylindrical tubes of extremely unequal 

 volumes, forming one continued but convoluted canal from the 

 pyloric orifice of the stomach to the anus ; in which, the process 

 of digestion, begun in the stomach, is completed. 



Situation. — These viscera, taken collectively, cannot be said 

 to be lodged in any particular regions : they are spread over 

 principally the inferior parts of the cavity of the abdomen, im- 

 mediately supported by the abdominal muscles, and are found, 

 one or more of them, in every region of a cavity, of most of which 

 they occupy the greater space. 



Length. — The intestines of the horse are ninety feet long, or 

 between eight and nine times the length of his body : those of the 

 human subject are about thirty-four feet long, or six times the 

 length of the body*. 



Every one knows that the stomach does secrete mucus, and a peculiar 

 liquor; but I do not, for my own part, see the sources of this. We see 

 distinct sources in the intestines, but we do not in the stomach ; at least 

 I cannot. — Ahernethi/'s Lectures in the Lancet. 



* I was at first undetermined in my mind how I should draw this com- 

 parison. I put down the ordinary height of men at 5 feet 8 inches. I 

 then extended a line from the forehead, above the orbital arch, of a middle- 

 sized horse, to the point of the hip, and thence carried it to the ground : 

 this I found to measure II feet. These, with the relative lengths of the 



