An inquiry into the reasons why the horse rarely vomits / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee.
- Sampson Gamgee
- Date:
- [1852]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An inquiry into the reasons why the horse rarely vomits / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![reason, when two men stand on a board placed over the stomach and press with jerks. B. A stomach, which did not allow water to flow through the cardia when a Aveight of fifty-two pounds was placed on it, and another, which required the pressure of twenty pounds before the water escaped, allowed the fluid to flow when I applied very slight pressure to the cul-de-sac with my hands. The result of this observation suggests another source of fallacy in M. Flourens' experiments. The force generated by the contraction of the stomach's muscular coat is distributed all over its superfices, whereas M. Flourens only applied vertical pressure to one aspect. It is easy to understand how the result obtained by his doing so, might have been readily altered by simultaneously compressing the extremi- ties of the organ. c. After filling a stomach with water through the pylorus, this orifice was closed by ligature, and the visciis placed on a table. By grasping the stomach Avith my two hands, and exerting very consider- able pressure in different directions, no water escaped. I then placed the stomach near the edge of the table, and on it a board with fifty- four pounds of iron; a little less weight than this sufficed to make the water dribble through the cardia; with this weight it flowed in a small but continuous stream. When I inclined the board backwards, so as to exert the greatest pressure on the great curvature of the stomach, the flow of water was freer than when I held the board horizontally ; as I inclined it forwards the stream gradually diminished, and eventu- ally stopped. Through an opening made at the great curvature I removed the mucous lining of the oesophagus, and that in the imme- diate neighbourhood of the cardia. On pouring water through the artificial opening, it escaped through the cardiac orifice in a large stream by mere gravity. D. Four stomachs, in the same circumstances as the above, did not give exit to the contained fluid, though grasped and firmly pressed by the hands of two persons ; but the water escaped freely from all, when the lining of the oesophagus and around the cardia was removed through an incised aperture made at the great curvature. E. A stomach, treated and placed as i;sual, did not allow water to escape through the cardia, when a boy mounted on a board was placed over it; but the water fiowed when a man, weighing one hundred and forty-four pounds, took the boy's place. F. One stomach, in the same condition as the preceding, did not allow the escape of any water through the cardia when a man, weigh- ing one hundred and fifty-seven pounds, mounted on a board which had been placed horizontally over it. When a boy, weighing sixty and a half pounds was added, water flowed in a continuous stream, and the viscus burst. G. One stomach bore the weight of two men, without any water flowing through the cardiac orifice ; on making an opening into the stomach, I found the mucous membrane at the cardia very much folded. The experiments A, B, c, d, warrant us in denying the existence of a sphincter at the horse's cardia.^ It would have been more satis- ' I performed cnreful expevinients ou three asses' stomachs, the results of which precise]}' agreed witli these.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22276695_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
