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Unpublished paper, 'On the distribution of the fibres in the muscular tunics of the stomach in man and other mammalia' by James Bell Pettigrew

Reference number: AP/54/9

Date: 1867

Description

Pettigrew has examined in succession the stomachs of several animals including the whale, porpoise, bear, puma, sloth, colobus monkey, howler monkey (genus Aloutta), orangutan, chimpanzee, and particularly man, both in the foetal and adult state. The plan adopted in the examination was to distend the viscus immediately after its removal from the body with water or air, and view it as a transparent object; to blanch the stomach by maceration, and distend it with plaster of Paris, tinted with blue, or to stain the parietes with carmine and inject with white plaster, the object in either case being to throw the delicate fibres into strong relief. By adopting those methods, Pettigrew is able to show that the arrangement of the fibres in the stomach remarkably resembles that found in the heart and bladder. This is particularly the case in the human stomach, where the fibres are most highly differentiated. In it the fibres pursue complicated, but well-marked directions; the most external and most internal fibres maintaining a more or less longitudinal course, the deeper or more central ones becoming more and more oblique as the centre of the parietes is reached.

Note on front reads 'Plates returned to author July 11/73'. Marked on front as 'Archives Nov 1872'.

Subject: Anatomy / Physiology

Received and read 20 June 1867. Communicated by [George] Busk.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 16 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On the distribution of the fibres in the muscular tunics of the stomach in man and other mammalia'.

Reference number
AP/54/9
Earliest possible date
1867
Physical description
Ink on paper
Page extent
27 pages
Format
Manuscript

Creator name

James Bell Pettigrew

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Citation

James Bell Pettigrew, Unpublished paper, 'On the distribution of the fibres in the muscular tunics of the stomach in man and other mammalia' by James Bell Pettigrew, 1867, AP/54/9, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_54_9/unpublished-paper-on-the-distribution-of-the-fibres-in-the-muscular-tunics-of-the-stomach-in-man-and-other-mammalia-by-james-bell-pettigrew, accessed on 13 November 2024

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  • Archived Papers

    Dates: 1768-1989

    The 'Archived Papers' collection is comprised of original manuscript scientific papers and letters submitted to the Royal Society which remained unpublished or were abstracted in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' published from 1830 onwards.

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