THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
vol. hi. JUNE, 1830. No. 30. 
ANATOMY OF THE HORSE. 
» 
[Continued from page 245.] 
DIAPHRAGMATIC REGION. 
CONTAINING only the single muscle from which it takes its 
name. 
DIAPHRAGMA. 
Situation. — It forms the fleshy and tendinous partition divid¬ 
ing the cavity of the chest from that of the abdomen. 
Form. —Broad, circular; flattened from before backwards; 
anterior surface, convex ; posterior, concave : bifurcate, superiorly; 
having two elongations or appendices extended backwards, and 
terminating in pointed extremities. 
Division. —The broad circular portion is sometimes distin¬ 
guished as the greater muscle; while the appendices or crura 
are said to form the lesser . 
Attachment. —The greater muscle is attached by fleshy digita- 
tions to the cartilages of the eighth pair of ribs, and to those of 
all the posterior ribs, with the exception of the two last; also to 
the ensiform cartilage. Of the appendices, the right, the longer 
one, is attached to the bodies of all the lumbar vertebra ; the left, 
or shorter one, has separate tendinous attachments to the first 
and second of these vertebrae. The two appendices form a union 
and decussation opposite to the seventeenth dorsal vertebra ; and 
afterwards, again bifurcate. The greater and lesser muscles form 
a conjunction through the medium of the cordiform tendon. 
Felations. —The anterior or convex surface is covered by the 
pleura; is opposed to the bases of the lungs, and in part to the 
sides of the chest; and is connected, next to the spine, with the 
superior mediastinum and its important contents; next to the 
sternum, with the pericardium and inferior mediastinum. The 
posterior or concave surface is covered by peritoneum ; and is, 
together with the crura, connected, superiorly, with the psoae 
VOL. III. s s 
