Diseases of the Digestive Organs. 137 



and establishing a fistula. If it gets hard and insensible 

 use iodine externally and internally. 



CHOKING. 



This is especially common in cattle feeding on roots, 

 ]>otatoes, apples, pears and the like, because of the habit 

 of jerking up the head to get the object back between the 

 grinders. Pieces of leather, bone, etc., chewed wantonly 

 often shp back in the same way. Horses suffer mainly 

 from badly shaped balls or sharp -pointed bodies, dogs 

 from bones. Ravenous feeders will choke on dry chaff; 

 cut hay, etc., being imperfectly mixed with saliva, and the 

 same will happen in cases of diseased teeth or sahvary 

 fistula or calculus. 



Symptoms of pliaryngeal and cervical choking. When the 

 object is arrested in the throat or neck there is great dis- 

 tress, staring eyes, slavering, violent coughing with expul- 

 sion of dung or urine, continuous efforts at swallowing, 

 and in cattle tympany of the first stomach, which may 

 suffocate the animal in fifteen or twenty minutes. I have 

 seen an animal die in five minutes when the object was 

 lodged directly over the opening of the windpipe. In 

 horses there is in addition an occasional shriek, and wa- 

 ter returns by the nose when drinking is attempted. In 

 omnivora and carnivora retching and vomiting are promi- 

 nent symptoms. A careful examination along the furrow 

 on the left side of the neck will usually detect the offend- 

 ing object. 



Symptoms of thoracic choking. If the object is lodged 

 in that part of the gullet which hes within the chest, 

 cough, slavering and gulping may be absent, but there 

 are efforts at regurgitation and the discharge of hquids 

 by the mouth (in horses the nose). This, with the inabil- 

 ity to swallow sohd food, is very characteristic. Tympany 

 is usually slight, and there may be tremors at intervals. 

 Symptoms of choking tvifh-^^^idy^ivided dry food. These 

 are the same as for solid masses, according to the situa- 

 12* 



