Abstract
IN a memoir “On the Intestinal Tract of Mammals” (Trans. Zool. Soc. of London, xvii., part v., December, 1905, pp. 437–536), Dr. Chalmers Mitchell extends to mammals the line of investigation which has already, in his hands, yielded results of great interest when applied to birds, namely, the systematic study of the pattern and arrangement taken by the folds and coils of the intestinal tract. With this object, the author describes the pattern of the intcstinal coils in a great number of mammals disected by him, representing examples of each of the principal subdivisions of the entire class. The descriptions are supplemented by an excellent series of text-figures, which show the arrangements in a semi-diagrammatic, but clear and accurate, manner. In the case of mammals of which the author has not been able to procure specimens for dissection he quotes from the existing descriptions of other authors such details as apply to the problems which are the object of his investigation. Thus the memoir before us gives an account, which is practically complete, of what may be called the general morphology of the mammalian intestinal tract, that is to say, of that portion of the gut comprised between the stomach and the anus. From his investigations the author arrives at a number of interesting conclusions, of which only a few can be mentioned in the limits of this article.
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M., E. The Intestinal Tract of Mammals . Nature 73, 618–619 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/073618b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/073618b0