Description Of The Stomach And Intestines:
The Fallacy Of "Purgatives":
The Principles And Use Of The Edema:
Notes On Giving The Enema To Children
And On An Enema Tactic

The Accompanying diagram of the human stomach and intestines is essential to a proper understanding of the digestive and eliminative functions of the body. It should be carefully studied in connection with the following description of the organs displayed.

"P. C.".--The Stomach.

This organ is a pear-shaped muscular bag, which receives the food after it has been masticated in the mouth. In mastication food is moistened and softened by the saliva, which also acts chemically upon certain elements, notably starch. Masticated food reaches the stomach through its upper or cardiac opening by means of a tube called the esophagus. Gastric juice, the normal secretion of the stomach, then begins its work of further transformation. While stomach digestion is proceeding, the liquid portion of the mass and the fluids drunk are in great part separated from the solids, and are at once absorbed into the circulation. The residue, called chyme, then passes through the lower or pylorio opening of the stomach into the small intestine.

"D. J. I."--The Small Intestine.

This portion of the digestive apparatus consists of a long tube, varying between twenty and thirty feet in length, which is ingeniously coiled upon itself. It is lined with what appears to be a soft velvety covering, an appearance that is caused by numerous minute elevations, the villi, which act as absorbents and secretents. In the upper part of the small intestine, chyme is subjected to the action of bile, the secretion of the liver, and to that of the pancreatic juice, the secretion of the pancreas, as well as to that of the secretion of the walls of the intestine itself. All of these juices still further soften and dissolve the food mass, and chemically transform the chyme into substances that permit of absorption through the villi into the blood. After the tissue-building portion is absorbed, the remainder--the refuse matter, the excrement--passes through a small opening known as the ileo-cecal valve into the large intestine or colon. This valve is constructed in such manner as to permit the waste to pass freely into the colon, but it prevents any backward movement or return to the small intestine.

"CC."--The Cecum.

The cecum is the large end of the colon situated just beyond the point at which the waste enters from the small intestine.

The Vermiform Appendix.

This is the small worm-like appendage to the cecum, which when inflamed gives rise to the trouble known as appendicitis. It is from one to five inches in length, and, despite the assumption that it is an organ that performs no necessary function in the economy of digestion, it finds its purpose and its use in adding stimulus, through its own motion and secretion, to the involuntary contractions and expansions of the colon, those vermicular movements called peristalsis.

"AC-R."--The Colon.

This organ, also known as the large intestine, consists of a tube about five feet in length, designated in the illustration as "AC", the ascending colon, "TC", the transverse colon, "DC", the descending colon, "SF", the sigmoid flexure, "R", the rectum at the extremity of which is the anus.

The colon is the main organ of elimination of the body, and through it the greater part of solid refuse is carried to the rectum to be discharged. When the colon is permitted to become clogged with food waste, the resulting condition is known as constipation, in which state fecal matter accumulates and renders the normally clean bowel a receptacle and retainer of foul, rotting refuse. The sigmoid flexure, "SF", is a device that prevents excessive pressure by the contents of the organ upon the muscles of the rectum, "R". Lying between the descending colon and the rectum it interrupts the straight fall from the transverse colon and it acts as a retaining pouch. The lower opening of the rectum, the anus, is guarded by a strong circular muscle which is under voluntary control.

The intestines as a whole are thus seen to consist of that part of the alimentary canal, which, commencing at the pyloric opening of the stomach, is coiled in the abdominal cavity and which ends at the anus. The several portions of the small intestine are known as the duodenum, the upper section, the jejunum, the middle section, and the ileum, the lower section. The lumen or tubular cavity of the small intestine is larger at its upper end, gradually narrowing as it goes downward.

The muscular coats of the intestines are circular and longitudinal in structure. In the colon the longitudinal fibres are proportionately longer than in the small intestine. Their greater length here permits of the formation of enlargements that often become the seats of fecal accumulation, and it is undoubtedly true that these cavities may contain fecal material that has been in process of gathering for weeks, months, or even years. Its presence and its products cause symptoms of disease to appear that vary from catarrhal inflammation to serious reflex disturbances. Excepting in extreme conditions, while quantities of waste may be held in these enlargements, a passage is necessarily maintained, and the main channel of the bowel still carries off feces. Occasionally a cavity becomes greatly distended with fecal matter, which hardens as its moisture is absorbed, and accumulations such as this have been mistaken for tumors or for malignant growths upon some abdominal organ. Impacted feces may occur in any part of the bowel, but chronic accumulations are discovered more often in the region of the cecum, in the ascending colon, and at or about the point of juncture of the ascending and transverse portions of the bowel, a condition that is to be expected, since in this part of the organ peristalsis works against gravity during the waking moments of the day.