The Development of Motor Responses in the Stomach of the Foetal Sheep

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Knowledge of the movement of the gut in the mammalian foetus is mainly derived from observations on small laboratory animals. Yanase (1907) made a systematic study of pre-natal intestinal movement in the guinea-pig, and observed that the appearance of peristalsis coincided with the time of development of the longitudinal muscle of the gut, at about the 27th day of gestation. At the stage when circular muscle alone was present, he was able to elicit only local constriction by mechanical or faradic stimulation. Foetal gastric movement was observed in the rabbit (Tani, 1927) and in the cat by Friedman (1934), Windle & Bishop (1939), and Becker & Windle (1941). The last-named described rhythmic and persistent gastric peristalsis in cat foetuses of 35–40 days. Becker, Windle, Barth & Schultz (1940) found that thorotrast injected into the amniotic sac of the guinea-pig circulated through the alimentary tract of the foetus from the 42nd day onwards; and human foetal swallowing is said to occur from the fifth month (Windle, 1940). While there is evidence, therefore, that alimentary tract movement commences in pre-natal life, nothing is known of the factors controlling the onset of movement or of the nature of the individual movements.

This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit: