FOREIGN BODIES. 121 
through natural passages or through the skin or a mucous membrane. 
The last are those which we shall specially consider, 
The phenomena: produced by foreign bodies vary considerably 
according to the degree of tolerance of the tissues with which they are in 
contact, and especially according to their more or less irritating 
properties, and their septic or aseptic constitution. 
The digestive canal is the principal way for the introduction of 
foreign bodies, and its mucous membrane is one of the most hospitable. 
Among the substances which enter the mouth, some stay in it, implant 
themselves on the gums, the cheeks, or the tongue, and give rise to 
abscesses (Huchne, Dehaye). Others perforate the walls of that cavity : 
in an abscess of the hollow of the right eye, Lapoussée found a mass of 
beards of wheat; in a similar spot, Klintmann saw small pieces of straw. 
The nervous centers have sometimes been reached by those emigrating 
substances which run through the walls of the mouth and of the 
pharynx: at the fost mortem examination of a horse, Rodez and 
Renard found the cranium perforated by a stalk of grass; in a pig, 
Durrechou observed an intra-cranial abscess caused by a needle; at the 
autopsy of a dog having died from meningo-encephalitis, we have seen, 
with the lesions of that disease, a deep, suppurative otitis due toa 
metallic piece, which, after perforating the soft palate, had entered the 
Eustachian tube. Larvae of cestré can produce similar disorders. 
(Megnin). 
Most foreign bodies introduced into the mouth pass into the pha- 
rynx and the cesophagus; sometimes they remain there: Métivet 
treated a horse whose throat was closed by a piece of wood; the 
cesophageal obstruction of cattle is well known. Some of these bodies. 
drop into the trachea (Degive, Bournay). Those which reach the 
stomach have varied fortune. They may remain there without producing 
visible trouble: this fact, very ordinary in ruminants, is known in all 
species of animals: at the fost mortem examination of a mare which 
had died suddenly, Garde found in the stomach seventy-five little stones 
weighing altogether 4 kilogrammes (8 pounds) ; Nichoux found in a dog 
a five-franc piece and one two-cent piece, which had remained in the 
stomach twelve years without apparent trouble to the dog; in an 
animal of the same species, we found two tops which had been in the 
stomach eleven months. Some of these bodies give rise to dyspeptic 
symptoms: in ruminants, to meteorizations; in dogs, vomiting followed 
by anorexia and loss of flesh. Ordinarily the dog succeeds in throwing 
up the foreign body accidentally swallowed. Weber has related the 
case of a dog thus rendering one morning “a gold piece of twenty 
francs and two silver fifty centimes.” When the substance swallowed 
is not too big, it may pass through the pylorus, travel through the 
intestines and be eliminated: the horse of our Belgian confrére André, 
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