STRICTURE OF THE (ESOPHAGUS. 243 



of a fistulous duct, whicli sometimes amounts to an evil as 

 great as, or even greater than, the calculus itself had proved. 

 In some cases sutures may be found requisite. A compress 

 will generally with advantage be applied upon the portion 

 of duct intervening between its gland and the wound. A 

 great consideration in the treatment is, to keep the jaws as 

 quiet as possible ; and therefore the horse ought to be sup- 

 ported for some days upon liquid aliment. Although it is 

 right to take such precautions, many of these wounds heal 

 and do well with comparatively little care. M. Vieillard 

 extracted salivary calculi from three troop-horses without 

 leaving any fistula. And M. Girard has seen the gland 

 itself cut into for the purpose of evacuating a salivary 

 abscess, and afterwards complete cicatrization ensue. 



This account is followed by the relation of several cases 

 illustrative of what has been said, whose insertion here 

 would prove of little or no service to us. 



STRICTURE OF THE CESOPHAGUS. 



By stricture is meant, a diminished or contracted state of 

 some tube or duct of the body. In man, we find strictures 

 occurring in all the mucous canals — oesophagus, intestines, 

 urethra, vagina : in the horse they have hitherto been dis- 

 covered in no others, I believe, but the oesophagus and 

 intestines. A stricture is either spasmodic or organic: that 

 is, the muscular or contractile power of the tube only is at 

 fault, and that is functional ; or else, its lining membrane 

 is thickened, and perhaps altered in texture as well. The 

 stricture I am going to treat on will be found to be of the 

 organic kind. Its occurrence is rare ; at least I argue so, 

 from having myself come to the knowledge of but four 

 instances of it. A case of it in a cow is related in ' The Vete- 

 rinarian' for June, 1843. 



The Symptoms of a strictured oesophagus, so far as I have 

 been enabled to note them, are, at first, a gradual falling off 

 in strength and spirits and appetite, with some attendant 

 febrile disorder; cudding not only hay, but corn likewise. 



