An inquiry into the reasons why the horse rarely vomits / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

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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    experiments, and was surprised at the very different results which I obtained from them. A just appreciation of my position in relation to M. Flourens made me diffident, and caused me to repeat my obser- vations and the study of his paper, at different times over a period of nearly three years. The result of this plan has been more clearly to establish the fallacy of M. Flourens' conclusions, and the mode by which he arrived at them. In justice to the originator, I prefix a translation of the account he gives of them to the results I have obtained, in order to afford full opportunity to every one to arrive at his own conclusions. Experiment i. The stomach being filled with water and the pylorus tied, the stomach was placed on a table, and on the stomach a board; two men then mounted on the board; they pressed it by jerks, and not a single drop of water escaped through the cesophagus.^ It was evident from this first experiment, that all the obstacle to the escape of water by the oesophagus was in the superior orifice of the stomach. This was rendered more evident by a second experiment. Experiment ii. The stomach being filled with water and the pylorus tied, I introduced a metallic tube, about an inch long, through the oesophagus into the superior orifice. No sooner was the tube placed in the opening than water flowed through the oesophagus. The obstacle of the cardiac orifice having been surmounted, none other presented itself in the oesojihagus. Hence the oesophagus, notwithstanding its strong circular muscle, takes no part in the phenomenon, as is even more clearly demon- strated by the following experiment. Experiment hi. The stomach being filled with water and the pylorus tied, I cut, piece by piece, from the pharynx to the stomach, all, absolutely all, the oesophagus; the stomach was pressed, and not a drop of water escaped from it. The oesophagus having been removed, I was able to introduce my finger into the cardiac orifice, and I recognised two things ; firstly, that the more the stomach was compressed, the more closely was my finger grasped; and secondly, that the oblique direction of the supe- rior orifice greatly aided the phenomenon, for as soon as I rendered this orifice straight, water flowed.^ Bourgelat believed that the principal cause of the not vomiting might be in the accumulated folds of the mucous membrane of the cardiac orifice. The following experiment proves that Bourgelat erred. Experiment iv. I made a large incision on the side of the stomach; I subsequently removed all the mucous membrane of the 1 M. Flourens states that he repeated this experiment more than twenty times, and the result was always the same, except with one stomach, Avhich he states was diseased, and describes as perce de trous profonds tous remplis de vers. There can be no doubt it was a stomach containing bots, a condition perfectly con- sistent with health, inasmuch as in a considerable portion of healthy horses, bots inhabit the stomach. It is remarkable that this observation did not shake M. F.'s faith in all his results ; had he connected that observation with the known fact that, as mwcles, the stomach and esophagus could alter their relative position, he must have seen that their vital endowments were an insurmountable barrier to the success of his purely mechanical experiments and aiguments.