6M 
ADMINISTRATION OP MEDICINES. 
kind, which came from England ; but it appeared to me 
much too complicated and expensive. 
The elder M. Aman, veterinary surgeon to the king of 
Wurtemburg, at Stuttgart, told me of an instrument of this 
kind, a ball-stick (Pillenstock) which answers the purpose, 
from the experience I have had of it. The shaft is a hollow 1 
cylinder, and the handle, which is a continuation of the 
shaft, is the same. Within this cylinder comes an iron rod, 
which at one extremity terminates in a button ; at the other, 
in an iron disc of the size of the opening mouth. When the 
button comes to be applied against the handle, the embou- 
chure of the orifice is closed ; but when the button is drawn 
out, the orifice is opened, and is closed by the pill in front. 
M. Aman finds it convenient never to make use of too hard a 
ball, lest it should stop within the passage of the oesophagus. 
The pills he gives approach in size to balls. 
M. Ruef, Veterinary Professor of Zootechny to the Agri- 
cultural Institution of Hohenheim, has made some modi- 
fications in the ball-stick of M. Aman. He has made it 
shorter, to render it more portable, and has adapted to it a 
receptacle. The instrument discharges itself by means of a 
trigger, so that one person can administer the ball with it. 
The ball-stick, as modified by M. Ruef, is made at the 
manufactory of agricultural instruments at Hohenheim, and 
sold for eight francs. I frequently make use .of one, and I 
am very well satisfied with it.* 
* The ball-stick of M. Lebas, known to all veterinarians, gives a very 
good idea of the instrument we have been describing, save that the ball-stick 
of MM. Aman and Ruef is much more perfect, since they have substituted 
repulsive force by a percussive spring from the hand. There are examples 
in French practice of perforation of the wall of the pharanx, by the extremity 
of the pill-stick pushed with too great force. — H.B. 
