As is generally conceded, the adult peritoneum of man, while a macroscopic structure of liberal proportions, is, nevertheless, complex beyond the ken of the ordinary student, without embryologic study. To such an extent have certain organs as spleen, liver, stomach, pancreas and colon migrated from their primitive location in the posterior mid-line of the body cavity, and contracted such intimate and deceptive physiologic adhesions, that even embryologic speculation as to the rationale of their migration was slow of general acceptance by the profession. If, now, to these numerous physiologic departures there be superadded pathologic departures incident to inflammatory processes, some conception of the difficulty confronting the student in his dissecting-room study may be imagined.
Within recent years our standard text-books on anatomy were monumental in their respective chapters on the peritoneum, to the most nagrant violation of perspicuity. ere is no longer doubt that in the study of the abdomial