[Changes in the muscular layer and the intermuscular nerve plexus of the intestines in experimental peritonitis in rats].

Changes in the muscular layer and intermuscular nervous plexus are studied histologically, histochemically and electron microscopically using the model of faecal rat peritonitis. Alterations characteristic of water metabolism disturbances (edema) up to the coagulation or colliquative necrosis development of individual cells are revealed in the muscular layer. Damage to the cholinergic structures which can be interpreted as a reversible partial morpho-functional cholinergic denervation is found in the intermuscular nervous plexus. The above changes are the structural basis of the intestinal paresis in peritonitis. These changes are reversible if an early (up to one day) elimination of the inflammatory process occurs.