the gastric glands of the human stomachy &c. 351 
thus forms a guard to prevent substances that would prove 
hurtful to the stomach from being swallowed. 
Strictures in the urethra immediately behind the cavity of 
the bulb, being met with under the same circumstances after 
the use of irritating injections into that canal, and various 
other causes of irritation, is the only evidence we have of 
this part having a power of involuntary contraction, which in 
the act of the coitus is employed to prevent any part of the 
semen from being forced backwards into the bladder. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Carpue, I am now enabled 
to produce a specimen of permanent contraction in the sto- 
mach, and if I had not observed such a contraction befpre, 
this specimen would have led, as in the other cases just men- 
tioned, to the discovery of the stomach in some of its natural 
actions, having this kind of contraction take place in it. It 
was met with in the body of a woman, and was probably the 
cause of her death, as no other appearance of disease was 
met with : the body was exceedingly emaciated, but there 
was no opportunity of acquiring any information of the 
symptoms under which she laboured while alive. 
As in this instance the stomach could be distended freely 
without any risk of the contraction giving way, the line of 
partition between the cardiac and pyloric portions is exactly 
defined, and shown in the drawing not to be the casual con- 
traction of a few of the transverse muscular fibres, which 
might have happened equally to any of the others, but the 
contraction of a part that had always been liable to it, and 
which was to answer some purpose in the performance of 
the functions of that viscus. 
The importance of this fact in studying the physiology of 
mdcccxvii. Z z 
