Royal Army Medical Corps training pamphlet / War Office.

Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Royal Army Medical Corps training pamphlet / War Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/376 (page 43)
    (b) The gastric glands in the stomach. These secrete gastric juice, which is acid and acts on meats. (c) The ver. This produces every day about two pints of bile, which helps to break up fats. (d) The pancreas. This secretes pancreatic juice, which acts on all classes of food, continuing the action of saliva and gastric juice. (e) The glands in the small intestine. These secrete the intestinal juice, which finishes the digestion of food in the intestines. 59. From the mouth to the intestine.—In the mouth the food is turned about by the movements of the tongue and cheeks, and chewed or crushed between the teeth; while at ' the same time saliva flows into the mouth from the salivary glands and is thoroughly mixed with the food to form a thick -paste, which can then be swallowed. Swallowing is done by the tongue pushing the food into the upper part of the pharynx or throat, whose muscles seize it and pass it quickly over the top of the larynx and down through the cesophagus into the ‘stomach. ‘In the stomach (which can be looked upon as a bag or receptacle) much of the digestion of the food takes place. Although the stomach begins to pass on its contents into the small intestine almost directly food is swallowed, a considerable time elapses—usually about four hours after a meal—before it is empty, and there is thus plenty of opportunity for digestion by the gastric juices. Different sorts of glands are found at the opposite ends of the stomach, producing two different kinds of juice. Glands producing acid and pepsin, which is a digestive ferment, are situated in the first part of the stomach (the left or cardiac end), and those producing mucin (a lubricant) at the right or pyloric end, where the stomach joins the first part of the small intestine, known as the duodenum. The acid secreted.into the stomach is hydrochloric acid. Digestive troubles arise sometimes from having too much of it, - and sometimes from having too little. Occasionally pain is due to an ulcerforming on the wall of the stomach or duodenum, On leaving the stomach, the partly digested food passes into the intestine. Near the commencement of the intestine the ducts or tubes from the liver and PRICIER pour their secretions into it through a common orifice. 60. Functions of the liver.—The liver is the largest gland in the body ; it weighs on the average 50 oz. It lies for the most part under the ribs on the right side, but part of it extends across the middle line and over the stomach (Fig. 26, page 50).