Atonia gastrica (abdominal relaxation) / by Achilles Rose, M.D. and Robert Coleman Kemp, M.D.

  • Rose, Achilles, 1839-1916.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Atonia gastrica (abdominal relaxation) / by Achilles Rose, M.D. and Robert Coleman Kemp, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    notwithstanding the ordinary good health, a stomach from which this splashing sound can be produced is not in normal condition; for in normal condition we can not, even at the height of digestion, elicit a splashing sound, because the stomach closes concentrically about its con- tents, the organ being adapted to the volume of the ingesta. This peristole exists as long as the reflectory tonus of the gastric muscles re- mains intact. Wherever we can elicit this splashing sound, we have before us relaxation or atony of the stomach. In regard to those peculiar splashing, gur- gling, or croaking noises of the stomach which some persons can develop by means of abdomi- nal pressure, and which excite the attention of laymen, and even of some physicians, Kussmaul says: There are many persons, whose stom- achs are either of normal dimensions or dilated, who have attained great skill in causing such noises. By means of their abdominal muscles they make a horrid music with every contrac- tion or expansion of the abdominal wall, a music [2]