DISEASES OF THE PHARYNX AND (ESOPHAGUS. 413 



VII.— DISEASES OF THE PHARYNX AND (ESOPHAGUS. 



(1.) FOREIGN BODIES IN THE PHARYNX AND 

 (ESOPHAGUS. 



Foreign bodies in the pharynx are most frequently found in 

 carnivora. Bones, fish spines, needles, pieces of wood, taken with 

 the food, or picked up in play, sometimes stick in the pharynx. 

 (See Cadiot and Dollar's " Clinical Veterinary Medicine and Surgery," 

 for reported cases.) In dogs and cats, sewing needles are often 

 found at the base of the tongue close in front of the epiglottis. 

 Pieces of potato or of other roots get lodged in the pharyngeal pouch 

 of swine. In herbivora, pieces of wood, bones, hair-pins, and the 

 like may become fixed in the mucous membrane of the pharynx, 

 but more frequently lodge in the oesophagus. In ruminants, 

 especially in cattle, the offending substances are generally pieces of 

 turnip, potato, fruit, beet, cabbage stalk, shoes, fcetal membranes 

 or cloth ; in horses, carrots, chaff, linseed cake or hay ; whilst 

 occasionally the obstacle is a tooth, a hen's egg, a bolus, a portion 

 of a prickly plant, or a piece of wood. 



Grimm found a piece of a lamp chimney in the oesophagus of a cow. 

 Mobius found a thorn about 5 inches in length. Moller removed a whip 

 handle about 3 feet long from a horse's oesophagus. Drandrieux extracted 

 a snake 10 inches in length from the gullet of a cow. Iwersen found a 

 hair ball in the oesophagus of an ox, eructated from the stomach. 



Foreign bodies remain fixed either because they are sharp and 

 penetrate the mucous membrane, or are too large to pass the narrow 

 portion of the oesophagus, or because the gullet has contracted on the 

 obstruction. In horses, stoppage of the oesophagus with hay results 

 from swelling of the bronchial glands, from tumour formation, and 

 from external compression. Cadiot and Dollar report a case of 

 obstruction in a horse from swallowing a piece of carrot. A 

 hypodermic injection of pilocarpine and eserine resulted in the foreign 

 body passing onwards into the stomach in about three-quarters 

 of an hour. In moribund animals, the food taken sometimes remains 

 in the oesophagus, and occludes long sections of it. Whether 

 paralysis of the tube ever occurs is questionable. The portions of 

 the oesophagus where bodies are usually arrested are — ■ 



(1) The commencement of the tube immediately behind the 



pharynx. 



(2) The lower portion in the neck. 



(3) The portion which passes through the diaphragm. 



As obstruction produces different results in different kinds of 



