446 
ON THE CHOKING OF CATTLE. 
the will. Every one must be sensible of this who has ever felt 
the spasmodic choking cough produced by a drop of fluid or a 
morsel of dry bread attempting to get the wrong way, as it is said. 
This, then, is one ever-watchful guardian which Nature has posted 
at the commencement of the passage to the lungs, to prevent the 
admission of any thing but air into these delicate organs. But the 
prevention of such an evil has not been left to the charge of one 
single arrangement of parts ; not only has it been provided for 
that nothing hurtful shall pass from the pharynx through the 
glottis into the inferior air-passages without immediate warning 
being given and an attempt made for its detention, but it has also 
been arranged that animals have the voluntary power of prevent- 
ing the ingress of any kind of ingesta into the pharynx during the 
time the respiratory current is passing through it. This is effected 
by the means of a fold or curtain (velum palati) of muscle and 
membrane suspended from the palate or upper and back part of 
the mouth, between that cavity and the pharynx. In animals that 
respire entirely through the nose, such as the horse and ox, this 
curtain is of such depth as to shut off the one cavity from the 
other, and by this means the animal is enabled to respire freely 
through the nose during the continuous act of gathering and mas- 
ticating its food. In the natural act of swallowing, the food is 
wound up into a bolus by the action of the tongue and palate, and 
carried backwards to the fauces beyond the root of the tongue. 
From thence it is forced by the action of the parts through the 
opening at the lower edge of the velum palati into the dilated 
pharynx, carrying before it the epiglottis, which thus performs the 
office of a lid or valve, shutting up entirely for a time the upper 
opening of the larynx, and leaving the food only one means of 
exit, namely, the opening to the gullet. By this double arrange- 
ment of parts the animal, when at freedom, respires and swallows 
alternately, the natural structure of the organs being such as to 
prevent the one action from interfering in the least with the other. 
And as a third and still farther guard against accidents among the 
lower animals — at least, among the herbivora — they, in the natural 
condition, feed and drink with the head in the dependant posture, 
so that no ingesta of any kind can be sent to the organs of deglu- 
tition but by the will of the animal, and when the parts are in a 
state of preparation for its reception. It needs only a slight exa- 
mination of the difference between the modus operandi which Na- 
ture has thus appointed in regard to swallowing, and that which 
is rendered necessary in the forced exhibition of medicine to cattle, 
to shew us why accidents are liable to occur. Cattle medicine is 
generally given in the fluid form, for reasons which it is needless 
here to mention, and is poured into the mouth from a bottle or 
