REVTEW. 
395 
data of the problem V’ As a sketch of their theory of vomiting 
in the horse, MM. Mignon, &c., state “ that the physical and 
vital conditions of vomiting, in their orders of succession and 
importance, are the following:— 
“ 1. Extreme distention of the stomach. 
“ 2. Disappearance of the folds in the esophagean mucous 
membrane, accompanied by dilatation of the cardia into a kind 
of funnel. 
“ 3. Paralysis of the muscular coat. 
“ 4. Energetic concurrence of the nervous force, and of the 
action of the expiratory muscles of the abdominal walls.” 
As to the first of these propositions, on which the reporters lay 
the greatest stress, it may suffice to say that it is an unfounded 
assumption. We grant that frequently undue repletion of the 
stomach is the stimulus which, through the medium of the 
nervous centre, brings about the reflex movements that end in 
evacuation of its contents by the esophagus; but such repletion 
of the viscus is not essential to the perfect manifestation of the 
reflex acts in question. This is abundantly testified by the 
sufferers on a sea voyage, in whom the act of vomiting, fre¬ 
quently commencing when the stomach is empty, and conti¬ 
nuing at other times after its evacuation, must primarily be due 
to a nervous cause alone. 
The purport of the second proposition is best given in the 
terms of the report: “ The disappearance of the folds in the 
mucous membrane at the cardia, and the dilatation of this part 
into a kind of funnel, are a necessary consequence of the eccentric 
and excessive distention of the stomach. The power that se¬ 
parates the sides of the viscus from each other is as great at the 
cardia as elsewhere; and if in the first moments of repletion of 
the gastric pouch the esophagean sphincter resists, it no longer 
does so when the repletion is excessive. The walls of the 
stomach, by the mere fact of their distention, carry with them 
the two bands of the sphincter, the rectilinear direction of which 
they interrupt; and then these fleshy bands, far from enclosing 
the cardia as between the branches of a compass, merely sur¬ 
round it as a section of a funnel. Thus it is that the esophagean 
orifice is transformed into a wide, open, and round orifice. 
The extreme dilatation of the stomach, by destroying at the 
cardia, and that in a purely physical manner, the obstacle which 
is opposed to the escape of matters through the esophagus, must 
therefore be regarded as the principal condition of vomiting. 
This is accordingly confirmed by experiment. The experiment 
alluded to, is the one quoted at p. 555, from which M. Mignon 
discovered that if water were poured through the duodenum 
into the stomach, this first became distended, then the cardia 
opened and allowed the fluid to escape. 
