336 THE HUMAN BODY. 



is pressed down like a lid over the air-tube and helps to keep 

 food or saliva from entering it. In structure the pharynx 

 consists essentially of a bag of connective tissue lined by 

 mucous membrane, and having muscles in its walls which 

 drive the food on. 



The (Esophagus or Gullet is a tube commencing at the 

 lower termination of the pharynx and which, passing on 

 through the neck and chest, ends below the diaphragm by 

 joining the stomach. In the neck it lies close behind the 

 windpipe. It consists of three coats a mucous membrane 

 within; next, a submucous coat of areolar connective tissue; 

 and, outside, a muscular coat made up of two layers, an inner 

 with transversely and an outer with longitudinally arranged 

 fibres. In and beneath its mucous membrane are numerous 

 small mucous glands whose ducts open into the tube. v 



The Stomach (Fig. 112) is a somewhat conical bag placed 

 transversely in the upper part of the abdominal cavity. Its 



larger end is turned to the 

 left and lies close beneath 

 the diaphragm; opening 

 into its upper border, 

 through the cardiac orifice 

 at a, is the gullet d. The 

 narrower right end is con- 

 tinuous at c with the small 

 intestine; the aperture be- 

 tween the two is the pyloric 



OTlfice. The pyloric end of 



the stomach lies lower in the 

 abdomen than the cardiac, 



the pylorus and d, the lesser curvature. an( j j g separated from the 



diaphragm by the liver (see Fig. 1). The concave border be- 

 tween the two orifices is known as the small curvature, and 

 the convex as the great curvature, of the stomach. From 

 the latter hangs down a fold of peritoneum (ne, Fig. 1) 

 as the great omentum. It is spread over the rest of 

 the abdominal contents like an apron. After middle life 

 much fat frequently accumulates in the omentum, so that it 

 is largely responsible for the " fair round belly with good 

 capon lin'd." The protrusion b to the left side of the cardiac 

 orifice, Fig. 112, is the fund us or great cul de sac. The size 

 of the stomach varies greatly "with the amount of food in it; 



