34 



PROFESSOR D. J. CUNNINGHAM 



An impoi'tant question is suggested at this stage : To what extent is the body of 

 the stomach, during the emptying process, converted into the tube over which the 

 peristaltic waves pass? To judge from the specimen described by Dixon (12), the 

 pyloric part of the stomach is in the initial stage of digestion alone tubular ; then as the 

 gastric contents begin to be discharged into the duodenum more and more of the body 

 of the stomach is added to the tubular part, until a point a little beyond the middle of 

 the stomach is reached. In the final stages the part of the stomach to the left of this, 

 or in other words, the reduced cardiac sac, becomes more or less uniformly diminished 

 by the steady contraction of its walls and by the passage of its contents into the gastric 

 tube, but it does not itself become tubular. I have made the endeavour to illustrate 

 this by measurement, but only with partial success, because the sequence is by no means 

 perfect ; although it will be seen that the main points are fairly well brought out. 



Fig. 2. Fig. 3. 



Figs. 2 and 3 represent two human stomachs, apparently perfectly healthy, which were obtained from two subjects shortly 

 after death, neither of which had been treated by formalin or any preserving reagent. The outlines were obtained by 

 placing the stomachs on paper and running a pencil around the margins. In both cases the pyloric canal was widely 

 open, but the sphincteric ring tightly contracted. 



observed before the introduction of formalin (see note at end of Struthers' paper (50) on Double Stomach, also the 

 description of some of the specimens in the paper by Roger Williams (58, etc.) ; (2) that I have had brought to 

 me several specimens straight from the post-mortem room which in all essential details are the same as those I have 

 described (figs. 2 and 3) ; and (3) that it wordd be a very remarkable coincidence if, forty-eight hours after death (and 

 often longer) the injection of formalin would produce a contraction of the stomach wall which reproduces in so 

 remarkable a manner the form which has been shown by the physiologist to be distinctive of the organ during the 

 more active phases of digestion. 



The second objection is more plausible, but equally fallacious. It was advanced at a discussion which was held 

 at a meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh. It was then suggested that the appearances presented 

 by the specimens might possibly be due to post-mortem rigidity. The third argument which I have employed 

 against the formalin objection applies with equal force to this suggestion, and is to my mind unanswerable. 

 Pfadndlbr (41) lias investigated this matter, and has come to the conclusion that the contraction condition of the 

 stomach is fixed at the time of death, and represents a permanent phase of its motor activity ; and likewise that the 

 rigor mortis of striped muscle has little in common with the stiffness so often noticeable in the stomach wall (see 

 his remarks on tins subject in page 13 of his work). I am not prepared to endorse this latter statement without 

 further and inure searching inquiry. The analogy which is sometimes drawn between the heart and the stomach in 

 this respect is misleading, not only on account of the difference in the structure of the muscle-fibre in these organs, 

 but also on account of tin- totally different character of the action and contraction periods. 



