388 
REVIEW. 
swallowed, and in which two strongyli were contained.” M. 
Tombs states that a bay mare, while on a journey, vomited a 
gallon and a half of indigested food. Though we do not agree 
with the explanation which he gives of the phenomenon, his 
statement of fact respecting it is so plain as to be irrefutable. 
These two cases appear to be conclusive evidence to prove 
that M. Flourens, and many of his predecessors, have sought 
explanations for a supposed, and not real, fact; and, therefore, 
have at least incurred the danger which attends those who study 
nature with imaginations erroneously preoccupied. 
II. History of the Subject. Were we to arrange the 
historical part of the subject chronologically, it might prove 
tedious; to avoid which we shall class opinions according to 
the analogies they present. 
1. While acknowledging that the stomach of the horse is 
situated at a distance from the muscular walls of the abdomen, 
M. Dupuy attributed, in a great measure, the difficulty of vomit¬ 
ing in that animal to powerful compression of the esophagus by 
the muscular fasciculi of the right crus of the diaphragm, in the 
substance of which it passes. A similar reason was, indeed, 
hinted at long since by Peyer; but its fallacy is too apparent 
to need much comment, since, in the same manner as food 
passes freely down the esophagus to the cardiac orifice, it may, 
without obstacle, retrace the same course. 
2. A second class of writers have imagined the existence of 
a valvular apparatus at the cardiac orifice, destined to prevent 
the return of food into the esophagus. Among them was 
Lamorier, who attributed the greater part of the horse’s difficulty 
in vomiting to the impossibility of compression of the stomach 
by the abdominal walls and diaphragm, alleged that a crescentic 
valve was so arranged as partially to close the cardiac orifice, 
and prevent the return of coarse food through it. Dr. Gurlt 
has figured a spiral valve at the cardia; and Mr. Spooner, after 
observing that the cardiac orifice “ has a sort of valve formed 
by the duplication of its membrane,” adds, that “the esophagus, 
just previous to its entering the stomach, makes an acute angle, 
by which means, in great measure, vomiting in the horse is 
almost entirely forbidden.” It has not, however, been satis¬ 
factorily shewn that either of the forms of valve above alluded 
to exists in the horse’s stomach. 
3. M. Colin, after repeating Lamorier’s observation, that the 
relative position of the stomach and large intestines protects 
the former from the direct pressure of the abdominal walls, 
correctly remarks that, at its terminal orifice, the walls of the 
esophagus are very thick, and that the cavity in its interior is 
’ closed, the mucous membrane being folded like a radiated 
