36 PROFESSOR D. J. CUNNINGHAM 



Foetus. — There is evidence that the fcetal stomach may show similar changes 

 in form in correspondence with the motor activity of its muscular coat. I have 

 examined seven full-term, still-born children from this point of view, and in two of 

 these the stomach exhibited a subdivision into a cardiac saccular portion and a long 

 tubular portion leading out from this. The best-marked specimen (VI. F ) is seen in fig. 

 28, PI. III., and it will be observed that the separation is effected by a deep indenta- 

 tion in the greater curvature. In the second specimen (V. F ) the two functional portions 

 of the stomach are likewise apparent, although the subdivision is less sharply indicated 

 (fig. 32). In one of Erik Muller's figures of the fcetal stomach (40), a somewhat 

 similar condition is depicted (see his PL X. fig. 7). It is very generally believed that 

 in the later stages of intra-uterine life the foetus swallows a considerable amount of the 

 amniotic fluid (42). This no doubt excites the motor activity of the stomach and leads 

 to the early delineation of its two physiological chambers. In one of the seven 



Fig. 4. — An absolutely empty Stomach. 



specimens which I examined (VII. F ) the stomach was greatly distended with a thin 

 turbid liquid mixed with mucus. 



Certain Aberrant Forms of Stomach. 



Amongst the numerous specimens which have come under my notice there are 

 three aberrant forms (Specimens IV. B , XI. B , and V. B ), which have been much altered in 

 form by excessive and probably badly co-ordinated contractions of the musculature. 

 These stomachs are shown in PI. IV. figs. 33, 34, and 35, and although at first sight 

 they appear very different from each other, I have classed them together, because 

 they exhibit, on closer inspection, certain common characters, which seem to 

 indicate that in each case a common physiological cause has been at work. They all 

 show an exceedingly deep incisura angularis and a doubling of the pyloric part upon 

 the body of the stomach, and they all present in similar situations a corresponding 

 series of expansions and constrictions, although these are expressed with different 

 degrees of sharpness in the different specimens. Indeed, the correspondence between 



