An analysis of the autonomic control of gastrointestinal motility in the cat.

Ileus, or loss of gastrointestinal activity, may still be a mortal complication of abdominal surgery. In this condition the inherent myogenic contractility of the gut has often been demonstrated to be unimpaired and it retains its responsiveness to electrical stimulation (Wangensteen, 1955). The basic disturbance of motility in ileus remains to be identified, but there is a large body of evidence suggesting that it is, at least in part, the result of a reflex phenomenon mediated through the sympathetic nervous system. Goltz, working with frogs in 1872, noticed that when the spinal cord was destroyed or the nerves of the digestive tract were cut, the digestive tract became unusually active, as if inhibition had been removed. Bayliss and Starling in their classical work in 1899 demonstrated that ileus in dogs could be relieved by division of the splanchnic nerves and Cannon and Murphy in 1906 showed that the duration of ileus depended to some extent on the amount of handling the gut underwent. At about the same time, Meltzer and Auer (1907) found that following destruction of the spinal cord in the rabbit, laparotomy did not cause intestinal inhibition and in 1922 Wagner introduced spinal anaesthesia in the treatment of ileus in man. Numerous workers in this field have since confirmed that both spinal anaesthetic and division of the splanchnic nerves can each reduce or abolish ileus (Olivecrona, 1927; Ochsner, Gage, and Cutting, 1928; Finkleman, 1930; McSwiney, 1931; Sealy and Witcher, 1936; Burstein, 1939; Douglas and Mann, 1941). The plain muscle of the alimentary tract of man and animals has inherent tone and exhibits spontaneous rhythmical activity independent of an intrinsic or extrinsic nerve supply (Evans and Schild,