ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICINES. 
641 
tions, and saline solutions, are generally borne well enough 
even when they are absorbed in the lungs. Good prac- 
titioners set it down as a rule, to never administer medicines 
in the liquid form in diseases where the respiration is em- 
barrassed. 
French records contain several instances of drinks having 
occasioned death, by going the wrong way ; in my own prac- 
tice, I have had several analogous cases, and more on 
account of the vulgar custom in my country, of administer- 
ing to horses drenches through the nostrils. It is true, that 
in this way the horse is forced to swallow, but it often hap 
pens that the drink enters the bronchi before the incautious 
administrator of it is aware of the circumstance. I cannot 
refrain here from relating an interesting case, which was 
near giving rise to an action at law. ****** 
M. Peltier, veterinary surgeon, of the district at Wiltry, 
sent two farmers in the same village a vermifuge drink, con- 
taining empyreumatic oil ; the following morning each gave 
the drink to his horse fasting, but the animal of the one fell 
and died immediately after the administration of the potion. 
M. Peltier had forgotten to recommend the drink being- 
administered by the mouth and with precaution. The autopsy 
disclosed that the animal had been suffocated by the pressure 
of the vermifuge liquid in the bronchi. 
I one day caused the instantaneous death, after the same 
manner, of a pig affected with constipation, to which I had 
given a solution of sulphate of soda, mixed with oil of poppy. 
I painfully call to my recollection four other analogous cases, 
one in the horse, and three others in horned cattle, by the 
administration of a drink proving the cause of death. 
All authors recommend, where it is desirable to admi- 
nister a drink to a blown ox, to give him large go downs, 
in order that the liquid may enter the rumen, by forcing the 
valve of the oesophagus. I have been in a situation to ob- 
serve to what extent such practice is dangerous. In fact, in 
these cases the respiration of the animal is embarrassed, by 
the compression made by the distended rumen upon the 
chest, and with that by the abnormal position given to the 
head in the exhibition of the drink, and often still more by 
the fingers introduced into the nostrils to elevate the head, 
all which operate in causing the animal to struggle, and with 
difficulty respire the air which the drink carries with it into 
the bronchi. I ought, therefore, to say, 1 have seen evil 
arise from the practice of administering drugs through the 
nostrils. I have great reason to call farmers’ attention to the 
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