Organization of the Muscular Wall Ofthe Human Colon
Gut, 1969, 10, 352-359 Gut: first published as 10.1136/gut.10.5.352 on 1 May 1969. Downloaded from Organization of the muscular wall ofthe human colon J. L. PACE AND IFOR WILLIAMS1 From the Department ofAnatomy, Royal University of Malta, and the Research Department, St Mark's Hospital, London The colon is the portion of the alimentary tract that ascending colon, and 20 from the transverse colon. All has generated least interest among investigators and areas, including the three taeniae, were examined at some although the last decade has seen new methods time both distended and opened before fixation. Those applied to physiological problems in the large bowel, specimens with visible diverticula were excluded, but in view of the age of the patients who have part of the colon the detailed anatomy of the muscular layer remains removed for neoplasm, and these were the bulk, it is a neglected subject, with the successfully located likely that some examples of diverticular disease escaped articles which consider this matter very few in detection (Williams, 1967). No muscle was obviously number. hypertrophied, but here again the impossibility of Each of us undertook an independent investigation diagnosis of this in life, lack of knowledge of how long and in this field of pattern recognition where it takes to regress after a colostomy, and the great observer error can be very gross, our conclusions difficulty of diagnosing it in the specimen, means that a have been surprisingly similar, so much so that a few examples may have gone undetected. It is an account common of the mature and ageing colon.
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