ANOMALIES IN THE FORM AND IN THE POSITION OF THE STOMACH.
These anomalies, so far as they have not received consideration in previous articles, are of more anatomical than clinical interest, and therefore here require only brief mention.
The stomach may have an hour-glass shape in consequence of a constriction separating the cardiac from the pyloric half of the organ. This constriction is sometimes congenital,16 sometimes caused by cicatrization of a gastric ulcer, and sometimes caused by spasmodic contraction of the muscle, which may persist after death, but disappears when the stomach is artificially distended. Hour-glass shape of the stomach has been diagnosed during life by administering an effervescing powder according to Frerichs' method.
16 A careful study of the congenital form of hour-glass contraction of the stomach has been made by W. R. Williams ("Ten Cases of Congenital Contraction of the Stomach," Journ. of Anat. and Physiology, 1882-83, p. 460).
Foreign substances of hard consistence which have been swallowed sometimes cause diverticula of the stomach.
Sometimes the fundus of the stomach is but little developed, so that the organ is long and narrow like a piece of intestine.
The stomach may be variously distorted by external pressure, as from tumors and by adhesions.
The loop-shaped stomach and vertical position of the stomach have been already considered in connection with DILATATION OF THE STOMACH (page [602]).