Special anatomy and histology: in two volumes (Volume 2).

  • William Edmonds Horner
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Special anatomy and histology: in two volumes (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    to terminate there. An epithelium under modified circumstances is then found to start and to cover the entire interior of the stomach, and to be continued over the intestinal canal from one end to the other. It is softer, thinner, and more spongy than the common epidermis of the pharynx and oesophagus, but may be proved to exist by the microscope, by the exfoliations in scales found in the faeces, and also by insufflation, when it will be raised and may be dried in that state. This mucous membrane or coat, the office of which is to secrete the gastric juice for the digestion of articles of food, presents a sur- face that resembles very much common velvet, from whence the term villous is applied to it. If it be perfectly healthy, and the individual died suddenly a few hours after eating—it is found of a uniform light pink colour, without blotches or anything of extravasation under it. This fact I have had several opportunities of verifying, by experi- ment and by autopsies :* And more lately in the person of a crimi- nal, Williams, executed for murder.f It is usual, to find it, if ex- amined a short time after death, having, particularly along the smaller curvature and at the great end, a pink and sometimes a deeper colour, produced by an accumulation of blood in its veins. The texture of this membrane is soft, loose, and easily lacerated. When floated, in water and' examined with a magnifying glass, it is found to have a superficial honey-comb arrangement, and to be studded with a multitude of small follicles or orifices whose number is above fourteen thousand to the square inch, and whose diameter varies from the fortieth to the eighth of a line. In the vicinity of the cardiac and of the pyloric orifice, the same arrangement is more ob- vious, and exhibits also some small glands, which are more or less apparent, and called the glands of Brunner, being by some con- sidered muciparous and by others as the source of the gastric fluid.:]: At the junction of the lesser extremity of the stomach with the duodenum, the internal membrane is thrown into a circular dupli- cature constituting the Pyloric valve, and abridging the size of the orifice. It is seen most favourably in the distended and dried state, and then presents a sort of septum not unlike the form of the iris. Around the external periphery of this ring, the circular muscular fibres have an abrupt augmentation of number, which gives them, * See Amer. Journal Med. Sciences,. Vol. i. 1827. Horner's Pathol. Anat„. p. 195, &c. f Aug. 9, 1839. % Anat. Atlas, Fig. 311..