Study of large bowel peristalsis.

Spontaneous colonic peristalsis in man occurs infrequently and, therefore, has proved difficult to investigate; radiological studies have been limited because of the dangers of irradiation, and obser-vations of intraluminal pressure change have been mainly confined to the rectum and lower sigmoid colon (Connell, 1961; Ritchie, Ardran, and Truelove, 1962). Progressive waves of contraction which empty long segments of colon can, however, be stimulated by an enema; such activity is usually called a strip-ping wave and can be regarded as a form of induced peristalsis1 (Williams, 1967). In the present study, both spontaneous and in-duced peristalsis of the colon have been studied by