Behavior patterns of the alimentary tract / by T. Wingate Todd.

  • Thomas Wingate Todd
Date:
1930
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Behavior patterns of the alimentary tract / by T. Wingate Todd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/88 page 14
    GENERAL FEATURES OF THE STOMACH The roentgenoscopic picture gives a more accurate idea of the dimensions of the pyloric portion of the stomach than of the cardiac part since the latter is further removed from the screen. The relations of the organ in the abdomen are presented in Figure 1, the subject standing erect. Figure 2 shows the subdivisions of gastric and duodenal shadows as we shall refer to them in the text. In its position the cardia only is approximately constant, being held by its relation to the diaphragm. In our experi¬ ence of the young male White the modal position for cardia shadow is at the level of the twelfth thoracic vertebra both in vertical and horizontal postures. The pylorus is more variable, the median example of a series lying at the upper level of the third lumbar vertebra when the subject is erect and at the lower level of the first lumbar when he is horizontal. The level of the lowest point on the greater curvature is so variable that one hesitates to make any statement. However in one of our series the greater curvature, in the erect posture, reached, in the median, the mid-level of the fifth lumbar vertebra but rose consid¬ erably on changing to the horizontal so that the median now lay at the level of the disc below the second lumbar. With change from the vertical to the horizontal posture a rise equal to two or even three vertebrae is usual. It is invidious to dwell upon average or even modal levels of these gastric landmarks. The position of the stomach is not susceptible of simple statistical analysis. Not only is the individual significant, his general bodily form, race, sex and age, but also the amount and character of the meal and his emotional and general health status for the time being. Hence I should class gastric condition as even less reliably represented by levels than a child’s development is indicated by his height-weight index or an adult by the closure of his sutures.
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