Contributions to the physiology of the alimentary canal / by William Brinton.

  • Brinton, William, 1823-1867.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the physiology of the alimentary canal / by William Brinton. 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.

    5/28
    above mentioned (viz. almost midway between the orifices of the viscus), but is much deeper than it. After continuing a short time, it passes onwards to the pylorus as a circular concavity, which appears nearly to obliterate the tube in its course; and finally arriving at that valve, terminates by engaging the mus- cular ring which surrounds it. A slight relaxation follows closely on the heels of this peristalsis, and in a little while a more com- plete dilatation succeeds, but not exactly in the order in which the constriction had occurred, the central hour-glass contraction being the last which altogether disappears, as it is also the first to return. The accompanying diagram contrasts together by its th ree outlines —the commencement of contraction, its maximum, and that of the intervening dilatation. Fig. 1. While the contraction remains, the large size and fulness of the cardiac pouch, the well-marked circular depression, and the narrow pyloric tube, have often suggested to me the simile of a funnel, the expanded portion of which contained a quantity of fluid, which its tube (here a muscular one) was slowly draining off. 1 he contractions themselves are more rapid than in the earlier stage, but the intervals are rather longer—from one to three minutes ; and a longitudinal shortening occurs, but it is even less prominent than before. I have not been able to trace the movement clearly into the duodenum: indeed, the balance of evidence is somewhat in favour of an independency of movement in these two parts of the alimentary canal; since I have sometimes remarked that a contraction of the stomach began when a peristaltic move- ment already occupied the duodenum, at a distance of an inch or two from the pylorus, and that the latter both travelled at a much slower rate, and was repeated at much longer intervals, than the gastric constriction. But on this point itis necessary to spedv with gieat hesitation, since there are many circum- stances which tend to prevent an accurate observation of these inte.-tinal movements, by simulating contractions, or distorting