REVIEW. 
381 ) 
flower. To this arrangement, M. Colin attributes the impos¬ 
sibility, or extreme difficulty, of vomiting in horses; and he 
endeavours to justify his belief by applying to the stomach the 
theory of the hydraulic press. But such a line of argument is 
not justly applicable in the case of the stomach and esophagus, 
which, as living and active organs, are not regulated solely by 
hydraulic laws. 
4. A fourth class of observers have attributed the difficulty 
of vomiting in the horse to the oblique insertion of the esopha¬ 
gus into the stomach, and to a sphincter, which they allege to 
be formed at the cardia by the union of the muscular bands 
belonging to the stomach and esophagus. This doctrine appears 
to have been first promulgated by Bertin, who stated, in proof 
of the existence of the cardiac sphincter, that the weight of a 
man did not suffice to expel water or air from the cardiac orifice 
of various stomachs, the duodenum being tied. Lafosse only 
took into account the sphincter at the cardia, whereas, of late, 
Berard and Rymer Jones have reiterated the conclusion of 
Bertin; and the former writer, moreover, remarks, that the 
rhythmic movement which M. Magendie discovered in the 
lower third of the esophagus, does not occur in the horse, 
whose esophagus, he adds, is composed, in its last eight or ten 
inches, of a very elastic but inirritable tissue. Since, however, 
the microscope, no less than the naked eye, abundantly attests 
the true muscular character of that tissue, M. Berrard’s denial 
of its irritability does not seem to be sufficiently warranted. 
Bertin’s theory has lately found a zealous advocate in M. 
Flourens, whose opinion on this question merits more careful 
study than do those of his predecessors, because he has based 
it on experiments which he affirms to be univocal and demon¬ 
strative of the obstacle to vomiting in the horse. 
Having been interested by a perusal of M. Flourens’ publi¬ 
cation at an early period of my studentship, I at once repeated 
some of his experiments, and was surprised at the very differ¬ 
ent results which I obtained from them. A just appreciation 
of my position in relation to M. Flourens made me diffident, 
and caused me to repeat my observations and the study of his 
paper, at different times over a period of nearly three years. 
The result of this plan has been more clearly to establish the 
fallacy of M. Flourens’ conclusions, and the mode by which he 
arrived at them. In justice to the originator, I prefix a trans¬ 
lation of the account he gives of them to the results I have 
obtained, in order to afford full opportunity to every one to 
arrive at his own conclusions. 
Experiment I.—“ The stomach being filled with water, and 
the pylorus tied, the stomach was placed on a table, and on the 
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