THE STOMACH. 



317 



a spoon. During swallowing the epiglottis 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 essen- 

 tially of a bag of connective tissue lined by mucous mem- 

 brane, and having muscles in its walls which, by their con- 

 tractions, 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 in the stomach below the 

 diaphragm, 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 tran& 

 yerselv and an outer with longitudinally arranged fibres. In 

 and beneath its mucous membrane are numerous small 

 glands whose ducts open into the tube. 



The Stomach (Fig. 96) 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 cMm* <t 



beneath the "diaphragm; 

 opening into its upper 

 border, through the car- 

 diac orifice at a, is the 

 gullet, cL The narrower 

 right end is continuous 

 at c with the small intes- 

 tine; the communication 

 between the two is the 

 pylonc orifice. The py- 

 loric end of the stomach 

 lies lower in the abdomen 

 than the cardiac, and is 

 separated from the diaphragm by the liver (see Fig. 1), 

 The concave border between 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) known as the great omentum. It 

 is spread over the rest ol me abdominal contents like an 



FIG. 96. The stomach, d, lower end of 

 the gullet; a, position of the cardiac aper 

 tun-, : b. the fundus ; c, the oylorus; e, the 

 commencement of the small intestine 

 along a, 6, c, the great curvature ; between 

 the pylorus and d, the lesser curvature. 



