Spiral rectal valves: Anatomy, eponyms, and clinical significance

Rectal wall valves are obscure anatomic parts that rarely are considered in current medical practice. Yet from the seminal analysis of them in the early nineteenth century by the Irish anatomist and surgeon, John Houston, their structure, purpose, and clinical significance were topics of surprising disagreement. Were they true structures? What function might they have? Did disease originate in rectal valves? Were special operations required for any such diseases? Because Houston's anatomic analyses of rectal valves were substantiated, they came to be known in the English literature as the Spiral Rectal Valves of Houston. In the mid-nineteenth century, a single mid-rectal valve was described by the Hanoverian, Otto Kohlrausch., creating confusion with the established eponym "Houston's Valves." Many hypotheses about rectal valves have been discredited; and their physiologic functions are still unknown.