254 
CHOKING IN THE HORSE. 
of choking are sufficiently familiar to your readers, it would 
perhaps only needlessly lengthen the detail were I to recapi- 
tulate them. 
After making every manual effort to overcome the obstruc- 
tion without any effect, the horse was drenched with w r arm 
water, and the pharynx and oesophagus thoroughly manipu- 
lated, and yet with no better result; indeed, the greater por- 
tion of the liquid given w as almost forthw ith ejected through 
the mouth and nose. 
I endeavoured to pass a probang, but it provoked so much 
resistance, and aggravated so materially the existing distress, 
that I w as constrained for fear of suffocation to desist. 
It soon became apparent, however, that a crisis was at 
hand ; in fact the horse was in such an alarming state that I 
w'as apprehensive he might fall headlong every minute ; with- 
out hesitation, therefore, I opened the trachea, and intro- 
duced a canula, which afforded immediate and permanent 
relief. 
From the moment of the operation, the breathing became 
more and more tranquil, and every untoward symptom gra- 
dually subsided. Perfect quietude was enjoined, the tube 
removed and washed, and the wound cleaned once daily ; 
the bow r els were kept gently open, a sloppy diet adhered to, 
and in the course of three or four days (the experiment only 
then being made,) the horse breathed freely and comfortably 
without the artificial opening, when the use of the canula 
w as discontinued, and the wound, which was merely sponged 
and touched as occasion demanded with Sol. Cupri Sulph., 
very rapidly granulated and cicatrized. 
The horse w as discharged for duty on the 24th of the same 
month, from which time to the present he has continued to 
perform his w ork as w T ell as ever. 
A case of choking in cavalry practice is, I believe, a rare 
one. The above is the first that I have met with, and that 
w r as more attributable to the restiveness of the horse than to 
any other circumstance. The ball was a small tonic one. 
I cannot but think that the fresh compounding of medi- 
cines has much to do with this comparative exemption, and 
as far as I am concerned, I do not allow a ball to be given 
enveloped in any material whatsoever. 
