LESIONS OF THE PAROTID DUCT. 281 
parotids appeared that would have necessitated the extirpation 
of these latter, or caused the death of the patient. 
The experiments of M. Leblanc were of too positive a character 
not to attract the attention of veterinarians to results that seemed 
calculated to impress the mind of practitioners with a conviction of 
the incurability of salivary fistulae, and the necessity of an opera- 
tion that, notwithstanding the authority of M. Leblanc, I believe 
it would be difficult to introduce into practice. 
Struck with these conclusions, Messrs. Delafond and Yatel re- 
peated a portion of these experiments. The left salivary canal was 
uncovered for an extent of nearly an inch, and an incision of about 
one-third of an inch in length was made in its longitude. The 
wound was left to itself : the saliva flowed copiously from it ; the 
edges soon began to tumefy, turned over, assumed a pallid aspect, 
and exhaled a very bad smell. The discharge continued uninter- 
ruptedly. 
On the fifth day, Messrs. Delafond and Yatel re-united the lips 
of the wound by some points of a simple suture. The saliva be- 
came effused through the surrounding cellular tissue, and created a 
tumour as large as a pullet’s egg, which soon become hot and 
painful, although the course of the saliva was not interrupted in 
the interior of the canal. On the eighth day the tumour diminished 
in size, and the inflammatory symptoms disappeared. 
Ten days after the re-union of the lips of the wound the points 
of the suture fell, and disclosed a healthy-looking wound, that was 
completely cicatrized on the 27th day after the operation. At the 
post-mortem examination, Messrs. Delafond and Vatel found that 
the incision into the canal was thoroughly cicatrized, and that its 
diameter, far from being contracted, was in fact greater in the length 
of the incision. Externally there was a slight induration of the 
surrounding cellular tissue. On summing up the results of this 
experiment, it will be seen : — 
1. That an incision made in the salivary duct, if abandoned 
solely to the efforts of nature, does not appear to be able to re-unite 
itself by means of pure and simple cicatrization. 
2. That a simple suture produced, within the space of fifteen 
days, a re-union of the solution of continuity*. 
3. And, lastly, that there was neither obliteration nor contraction 
of the excretive canal of the parotid. From this period, several 
veterinarians have registered circumstantial facts in the annals 
of science, which prove that, in general, wounds of the parotid 
duct become cicatrized without contraction or obliteration. 
M. Bettinger has related a case of this nature in the ‘Recueilt.’ 
* Recueil, vol. vi, p. 335. f Recueil, 1828, p. 333. 
VOL. XIX. Q q 
