This section is from the book "Surgical Anatomy", by John A. C. MacEwen. Also available from Amazon: Surgical Anatomy.
The Solar Plexus supplies the stomach, small intestine, liver, pancreas, spleen, and kidneys with sensation; controls the blood-supply, and also the calibre of the bowel. The plexus receives branches from the vagus, phrenic (through its hepatic and suprarenal divisions), and also the splanchnic nerves, Which arise from the gangliated cord of the sympathetic. Injuries to the viscera, supplied by the sympathetic, produce faintness, collapse, and vomiting, the symptoms being more severe in injuries of organs more closely associated with the plexus. Thus injuries about the stomach generally produce profound symptoms ; those of the small intestine serious symptoms; while those of the ascending colon, which is supplied by the superior mesenteric plexus, are much less serious, and those of the descending colon and sigmoid, supplied by the inferior mesenteric plexus (and therefore only indirectly associated with the solar), still less so.
 
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