a. Chiefly Anat. and Path. [f. L. ventricul-us (see next) + -AR, or ad. mod.L. *ventriculāris. So F. ventriculaire.]
1. Of or pertaining to the stomach; abdominal, gastral, ventral.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), I. 249. It is also said that the common garden rue…, when eaten to excess, is succeeded by the same symptoms of ventricular pains.
1840. New Monthly Mag., LIX. 164. No one … ever listens to ventricular admonitions, but ‘greatly daring dines’ on, in defiance of dyspepsia.
1845. Blackw. Mag., LVII. 610/1. Louis XIV. actually did wear it [a coat] buttoned below the ventricular curve.
b. Distended in the middle; ventriculous.
1850. in Ogilvie.
2. a. Affecting a ventricle or ventricles (of the heart, brain, etc.).
1838. Penny Cycl., XII. 79. Its [the heart’s] point … strikes at each ventricular contraction, or systole, as it is called, against the wall of the chest.
1853. Markham, Skoda’s Auscult., 205. The ventricular systole may also be accompanied by two distinctly different sounds.
1888. W. R. Gowers, Man. Dis. Nerv. Syst., II. 298. Limited ventricular meningitis occurs especially in young children.
b. Of or pertaining to, forming part of, a ventricle.
1840. E. Wilson, Anat. Vade M. (1842), 338. The Deep or Ventricular veins commence within the lateral ventricles by two vessels.
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, Introd. p. lvi. A complete separation of the ventricular part of the heart into two cavities.
1875. Payne, Jones & Siev. Pathol. Anat., ix. 244. The surface either of the plexus or the ventricular walls.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 109. So far as regards the heart and ventricular muscle.
3. Of the nature of a ventricle.
1847. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd., xxiii. 397. A single auricle that communicates with a strong ventricular cavity. Ibid., xxix. 606. The heart … separated into two distinct sets of cavities, each composed of an auricle and of a strong ventricular chamber.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., iii. 115. In the simplest Calcispongiæ,… the pores open directly into the ventricular cavity.
