FISTULOUS PAROTID DUCT. 185 



case of this description, a seto7i through the cheek is in 

 human surgery recommended. An ordinary one, with our 

 patient, will not answer. The horse will bite off any knot 

 that may come against his grinders. The only method by 

 Avhich I could maintain a seton in the cheek, was by attach- 

 ing a flat metallic button (with holes through it, but without 

 a shank) to the tape, and by confining this close to the 

 cheek, I prevented it from being crushed to pieces. The 

 object of the seton was to make a fistulous orifice internally; 

 then to heal that which was external. Feasible, however, as 

 this seems, after every effort I completely failed. 



Last but sure Resources. — Should we not succeed by 

 any of the more lenient methods of cure, there is one to 

 which we may resort Avith tolerable certainty, though over 

 it we do not possess the same control as over others. I was 

 led to make the experiment from having been unsuccessful 

 with other remedies. I consulted some French accounts — 

 and I found that M. Leblanc had extirpated, by incision, 

 the parotid gland. The operation appeared to me of the 

 most formidable description ; happening, however, to have 

 a condemned subject in my possession, I first performed it 

 by way of experiment ; and I succeeded better than I had 

 anticipated. But such was the hemorrhage, and such the 

 nice dissection and anatomical skill required to avoid wound- 

 ing one or other of the important blood-vessels and nerves, 

 that I felt little disposed to repeat the undertaking upon an 

 animal I had in the infirmary, for the benefit of which I was 

 making the inquiry. Another French writer, Hurtrel 

 d^Arboval, conceived the possibility of paralysing the gland, 

 of depriving it of vitality, or of rendering it incapable of 

 secretoty action. This he proposed to effect by compression, 

 so contrived that the gland might be isolated ; its commu- 

 nication with the surrounding parts being completely inter- 

 cepted. The experiment, however, failed ; and the result 

 was I destroyed the entii^e substance of the gland. 



The Author^s Method. — Dissatisfied with all previous 

 modes of proceeding, it struck me that the destruction of 

 the gland might be cftccted in a simpler and an equally effi- 



