Medical and physical researches, or, Original memoirs in medicine, surgery, physiology, geology, zoology, and comparative anatomy / by R. Harlan.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and physical researches, or, Original memoirs in medicine, surgery, physiology, geology, zoology, and comparative anatomy / by R. Harlan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    667/778 (page 557)
    JYolice of an Anatomical Peculiarity observed in the Sto- mach of the Condor of the Andes. Vultur gryphus, Linn. During the past year, two fine specimens, male and fe- male, of the Condor from Peru, died in this city. I caused their skins to be prepared, and they now constitute a valuable addition to the Cabinet of the Academy of Natu- ral Sciences of Philadelphia. On dissection, the stomach presented a peculiarity of organization, which appears to be characteristic of this species. The crop or ingluvies is very large, and was in this in- stance filled with macerated raw meat. The stomach, which was nearly empty (with the exception of some thick pieces of glass, anthracite coal, gravel, &c.) is oblong in form ; the cardiac portion being marked with longitudinal folds; the middle portion displays two oval protuberances composed of gastric glands, which is again succeeded by a membranous or saccular portion, on the interior surface of which are numerous and nearly contiguous, longitudi- nal bands or ridges, of a cartilaginous structure, serrated or spiny on the surface towards the cavity of the stomach, covering the pyloric or lowermost two-thirds of the sto- mach. This cartilaginous production, like the inner lining of the gizzard of the fowl, is easily detached. It must have considerable effect in facilitating the process of di- gestion, by tearing and separating the fibres of the meat with which these birds habitually gorge themselves, so as to be disabled, for a time, for flight. The liver is very large ; the gall bladder was much distended with bile.