Excerpt from The Clinical Anatomy of the Gastro-Intestinal Tract The term anterior or ventral abdominal wall is usually restricted to the rhomboidal area between the costal margins above and the inguinal (poupart's) ligaments below. The lateral abdominal wall consists largely of the costal arches, but between the costal margin and the iliac crest is a small unprotected area, the flank, an incision into which is properly termed laparotomy. The use of this word has been extended to cover an incision through the ventral abdominal wall into the peritoneal cavity, which incision is correctly known as a coeliotomy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.