352 
LESIONS OF THE PAROTID DUCT. 
The experiments we have made are also related. Both have 
attracted the attention of the Roval and Central Society of Agri- 
culture, who have made honourable mention of them*. 
CHAPTER IV. 
Some Considerations relative to the Treatment of Fistulce of this 
Duct in the Human Being f : — might not that which we propose 
he, under certain circumstances, with advantage substituted for 
the ordinary treatment ? 
Numerous means have been had recourse to in order to effect 
the cure of salivary fistulae of the parotid duct, and all of them, in 
the course of a greater or less period of time, have been attended 
with the best results, and brought about incontestible cures. 
Studied in their whole, and in a general manner, the principal 
modes of proceeding hitherto adopted may all be arranged under 
four heads. 
A. — The first of these acts chiefly upon the external wound, the 
object being to obtain cicatrization of the fistulous opening. Several 
modes of proceeding have been recommended. Among these are 
cauterization, compression, twisted suture, and ligature of the 
canal. 
1st. Cauterization has been frequently practised. It succeeded 
with Louis, who employed it, although he thought always that it 
was more calculated to increase the size of the fistula than to cica- 
catrize it. It may be performed with either actual or potential 
cautery. It has occasionally been aided by compression along the 
course of the canal. 
2d. Compression alone has been often employed between the 
parotid gland and the fistula, and even on both these parts, in order 
to interrupt the course of the saliva during the time the wound 
takes to heal. But this proceeding, although occasionally success- 
ful, is not without danger. Louis, and several more modern prac- 
titioners, were of opinion, and justly so, that it often occasioned 
* Cases of recent lesion of the parotid duct are certainly neither “tedious 
nor difficult of cure and there is no better method of treating them than what 
M. Reynal has so well described. But, let M. Reynal have such a case to 
treat as Mr. Percivall has related in the first volume of “ ITippopathology,” 
and he will find his tinctures and his pledgets of tow and lint, together with his 
blisters and cauterizations, one and all of them ineffectual, and be compelled 
— as Mr. Percivall was— to resort to measures of a widely different and far 
severer character. — Ed. Vet. 
■j- For authority on these surgical considerations, we have consulted the 
works of Messrs. Velpeau and Malgaigne. 
