RUPTURE AND STRICTURE OF THE @SOPHAGUS. 117 
Lymph is deposited about the place, till ultimately a firm and solid 
stricture is formed. 
This, however, though bad enough, is not the worst. Lymph, after a 
time, has a tendency to contract. With the diminution of the external 
ring, of course the internal canal decreases; it is strained at every 
meal; but straining only provokes its contractive power, till at length 
hardly the best comminuted morsel could pass the opening. Such, how- 
ever, rarely enters the strictured ceesophagus; the difficulty of deglutition 
renders it impossible for the appetite to be appeased. No sooner is the 
food placed before the animal than, because of hunger, induced by pro- 
longed starvation, it is bolted, almost unprepared by mastication and 
insalivation. Nourishment in that state cannot pass the stricture; it 
lodges above the contraction; still, hunger impels the horse to eat on. 
It does so till the esophagus becomes distended. Gullets have been 
taken from animals, stretched till they are thinner than the paper upon 
which this book is printed, and so much enlarged as to admit a boy’s 
clenched fist. 
After the affection reaches this stage, the swollen esophagus, when 
loaded, presses upon the trachea and 
larynx so severely as materially to im- 
pede the breathing, and it is at this period 
that instinct develops a strange artifice. 
The horse has no power to vomit; the 
fibers of the healthy esophagus impel 
but in one direction ; still, no sooner has 
the gullet become distended than the 
impaired breathing creates a desire to 
remove the obstruction. The chin is 
lowered; the crest is thus curved to the 
utmost, when the muscles of the neck are 
brought into violent action, and the im- 
pacted provender is shot back through Dh 
the mouth and nostrils. THE HORSE ENDEAVORING TO CAST UP THE 
PROVENDER WITH WHICH THE SAC OF A 
This description reads bad enough, but AThIGrORED. GeOPHAGUS 18: LOAD ED: 
regard for veracity obliges the statement 
that is not yet complete. Hunger, when excessive, causes the stomach 
to pour forth its acid secretion ; this effect is produced by the sight of 
provender; but the gastric juice not being given food to act upon, passes 
into the intestines; there it provokes the most intense spasm ; so that it 
is common to see the hind legs raised to violently strike the aching belly, 
while the labored breathing announces that abstinence from any kind of 
exertion has become a primary necessity of life. 
