CESOPHAGOTOMY. 255 



During the healing of the wound the animaPs diet ought to 

 be liquid, or nearly so : gruel, thick and nutritive, and boiled 

 roots, with mashes of various liquid-like aliment; chopped 

 green meat of any soft and succulent kind, and short-cut 

 grass are also admissible. 



Sometimes it happens, when we come to operate, that the 

 mucous lining of the tube proves to be ruptured or ulcerated 

 through, on the back side of the obstructing body, and 

 perhaps too in front, and becomes detached from the muscular 

 coat, owing, in the first instance, to extreme distension. 

 This renders the case exceeding troublesome, and even 

 dangerous, to manage, and now and then proves the cause 

 of dissolution. An instance of this is related in 'The 

 Veterinarian/ vol. XVII, p. 36. 



The following case is well worth attention, on account 

 of its showing what may be sometimes effected by simple 

 manipulation, without going to the extremity of laying open 

 the oesophagus. 



Mr. King was summoned to a horse that had had a ball 

 administered to him by the groom, wrapped up in writing 

 paper; since which he had ejected everything he had eaten 

 or drunk. Mr. King discovered a prominence in the neck, a 

 little above its middle, and tried all means to force the ob- 

 structing body onwards ; but without avail. At length Mr. 

 King determined on cutting down upon the oesophagus; having 

 done which, without opening the tube, he found the obstruc- 

 tion arose from the lodgment of the ball tlie groom had 

 given. Feeling the tumour soft and compressible, he 

 squeezed and kneaded it with his fingers and thumb for 

 some time, and then left it in statu quo. Shortly afterwards, 

 the ball was by natural efforts carried down into the stomach, 

 and liquids were taken, and readily passed. It was not for 

 some time, however, that the animal became enabled to take 

 solids into his stomach : whenever he swallowed them they 

 were rejected through the mouth and nose the moment they 

 had descended so low as the place where the ball had stopped. 

 Mr. King thought that this must have been owing to the 

 presence of a stricture, an opinion he conceived warrantable 



