FISTULOUS PAROTID DUCT. 395 
valuable secretion imperative to the proper performance of the function, 
is absent; while every movement is a pain occasioned by the agony of a 
diseased stomach and the anguish attendant upon a fistulous sore. The 
wretched creature, in this condition, speedily becomes an object of dis- 
gust to the most humane master; and, according to the convenient 
morality of modern times, is therefore sold to the highest bidder. Pur- 
chased only for the work which remains in the carcass, a fearful doom 
lies before: the sick and debilitated quadruped. It rapidly sinks lower 
and lower, at each stage of its descent the food growing more scanty 
as the labor becomes more exhausting. 
The parotid duct is the tube by which the saliva secreted by the 
gland is, during the act of mastication, conveyed into the mouth and 
mingled with the food. The parotid gland lies at the spot where the 
neck joins the jaw; within the interior of that body numerous fine 
hollow vessels connect and unite. These at each junction become larger 
and fewer in number, till at length they all terminate in one channel, 
which is the duct immediately about to be considered. It leaves the 
gland and travels for some space upon the inner side of the jaw; after 
which it curls under the inferior border of the bone and runs in front of 
the large masseter muscle of the horse’s cheek. 
Its injury is frequently occasioned by hay-seeds or particles of food, 
during the process of comminution, entering the open mouth of the 
duct; these, subsequently becoming swollen, prevent the free egress of 
the saliva. The secretion, nevertheless, goes forward and accumulates 
within the tube, which it greatly distends. A confined secretion pro- 
duces the most exquisite agony. The 
motion of the jaw stimulates the gland to 
pour forth its fluid; thus every mouthful 
which the animal is forced to eat not only 
is the cause of suffering, but likewise occa- 
sions additional pressure to a channel 
already enlarged to bursting, and which 
at length bursts. 
Another provocative is calculus, or 
stone, which is sometimes taken from the 
cheeks of horses, they being of enormous tm: Hein Aven Sieben 4 A SALI 
comparative magnitude ; the natural tube ; 2 
would not admit a pea. Concretions have been removed from this nar- 
row passage as large as a pullet’s egg. Such an obstacle not only 
impedes the flow of saliva, but produces additional anguish by the dis- 
tention it occasions, and by the hinderance so hard a substance offers to 
every motion of the animal jaw during the necessary period of mastication. 
