A Study of the Motility in Different Parts of the Human Colon

Abstract

In patients undergoing ‘cold appendectomy’ three open-tip tubes were placed into the colon via the base of the appendix with the recording tips at different levels. In one patient with a caecal fistula the tubes were introduced via the fistula. Three to seven days after the operation, recordings of the pressure activity in the different parts of the colon were started. The resting activity, the activity following a meal, and that following an injection of prostigmine were studied.

The resting activity in each part of the colon was independent of that in the other parts. The activity pattern varied to some extent in the same individual from day to day.

Ingestion of a standard meal produced a clear-cut increase in activity in all three parts of the colon but was most marked in the sigmoid.

Prostigmine also induced a considerable rise in colonic activity, which in most of the records was greater in magnitude than after the meal but was otherwise of the same type. Here also the strongest response was registered in the sigmoid.

Key-words:

• Colon
• human experimentation
• movement
• physiology