ON THE STOMACH IN MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE. 29 



In so far as its division into a cardiac saccular part and a tubular part is concerned, 

 only one answer can be given. Its striking resemblance to the stomach represented in 

 PI. III. fig. 23 points to the conclusion that both must be the result of the same cause, 

 and in my specimen this cause was certainly not costal or any other form of compression. 

 It was obtained from a male whose body wall was well formed, and in whom nothing 

 abnormal could be detected in the abdominal contents. In His's case the doubling of 

 the stomach upon itself and its vertical position were, however, no doubt due to the 

 body constriction. 



Such being the case, we must look for some other explanation which will account 

 for a stomach-form which we shall see later is by no means uncommon. 



Recent physiological investigation into the rhythmical movements of the stomach 

 during the progress of gastric digestion affords us the key to the solution of the 



Fig. 1. — Some of the tracings which are given by Cannon to illustrate the forms assumed by the stomach of the cat 



during the progress of digestion. 



problem. W. B. Cannon, of Harvard University (6), has written a most instructive 

 paper on this subject, and has given us a very nearly complete picture of the motor 

 activity of the stomach. His method of research consisted in feeding cats with a pulpy 

 food impregnated with subnitrate of bismuth, a harmless, non-irritant powder, and then 

 observing by means of the Rontgen rays the movements of the stomach as shown by 

 the shadow of the food-mass thrown upon the fluorescent screen. Unfortunately, 

 Cannon describes the stomach in a manner which does not appeal to the anatomist, 

 but he supplies an excellent explanatory diagram, so that there is little or no difficulty 

 in understanding the terms which he applies to the different regions of the organ. 



According to Cannon, " the stomach consists of two physiologically distinct parts : 

 the pyloric part and the fundus." The pyloric part, as understood by this author, 

 comprises, in addition to the pyloric part as defined by the anatomist, the right half of 

 the body of the organ ; whilst the fundus is not limited below by the zona cardiaca, 



