ON THE CHOKING OF CATTLE. 
447 
horn. The first part of the operation, therefore, is to get up the 
head. This is, no doubt, necessary towards a forcible administra- 
tion of the dose ; but as it is a perversion of the ordinary plan of 
Nature, the least evil that can be said of it is, that it renders the 
operation particularly liable to accident. The head being got up, 
it is often no easy matter to keep it so, and animals are trouble- 
some and difficult to hold. As a convenient part to grasp, and 
affording a good purchase for keeping up the head, the nostrils 
are commonly laid hold of, and the drinking utensil being intro- 
duced into the mouth, the liquid is poured down the throat. The 
animal is now obliged to swallow by the fluid running over the 
back part of the tongue into the opening of the fauces ; and should 
it require to breathe before the operation is finished, it must be 
cautious to shut off the cavity of the mouth from that of the pha- 
rynx during the time the respiratory current is passing in and out 
through it. This, however, it will generally manage to do if the 
respiratory action of the nostrils is left free and unimpeded. But 
if the nostrils are firmly grasped, or the power of breathing through 
them in any way obstructed, the consequences are very different. 
The animal, if it must breathe, can now do so only through the 
open mouth, which at the same time is full of fluid ; and instead, 
therefore, of breathing freely, it can only gargle, and the instant it at- 
tempts to do so, a portion of the fluid trickles down upon the sensitive 
parts about the glottis, which occasions a strong convulsive cough, 
and consequently a severe struggle to reject the fluid. Even still, 
if the head be at once let go, the animal holds it down, and the 
dependant position, aided by the expulsive action of the cough, 
rids the rima glottidis of the offending matter. But if the case is 
differently managed — should the operator still persist in keeping 
up the head — what follows ! As a last resource, another cough is 
attempted ; but before this can be accomplished the breath must be 
first drawn in, and a portion of the fluid in the mouth and pharynx 
is carried along with it into the larynx and trachea. This again 
produces another cough and another inhalation of air, accompanied 
by another portion of the fluid, and the further progress of the evil 
comes to be a question between the strength and determination of 
the operator and the animal. If it can get quit it will; if it can- 
not, and if he persevere, he will as certainly put the medicine into 
the lungs, as he would have put it into the stomach had he adopted 
a better system of proceeding. Such being the consequences 
which are likely to follow an improper method of administering 
even the blandest fluid, how much worse must it be when the 
drench contains, as it often must, a quantity of ginger, pepper, 
or other stimulating matter, which, by its irritating qualities, tends 
to produce coughing. It is then rendered doubly dangerous, both 
