450 
ON THE CHOKING OF CATTLE. 
nervous influence is seriously impaired. In such we often find 
the fine sensibility which ought to preside over the function of de- 
glutition almost entirely gone, and the animal devoid of any volun- 
tary power in swallowing ; so that fluids recklessly poured over the 
throat will as likely proceed along the trachea as the oesophagus. 
In addition to this, an animal so weakened is less able to resist a 
strong and heedless operator, and also less able to make a powerful 
expulsive effort for its own relief. As confirmatory of this it may 
be mentioned, that in the two cases last spoken of, where death 
followed almost immediately after the administration of the medi- 
cine, both the animals were labouring under pre-existing disease 
of a low putrid form, both presented on post-mortem examination 
all the appearances of having died asphyxiated, and both had a 
large amount of foreign fluid matter in the air-passages. With 
regard to the treatment of such cases, all attempts at it would, I 
believe, be vain. The only useful thing to be done, is to let out 
the blood, and try to save the skin and carcass, if of any value. 
The chance of asphyxia supervening upon the introduction of 
fluid matter into the air-passages is succeeded by, or perhaps com- 
plicated with, a tendency to syncope or fainting. This condition is 
probably produced by the penetration of globules of air into the 
vascular system, from portions of emphysematous lung. It has been 
found in a number of cases in the human subject after death from 
syncope, that emphysema of the lungs was accompanied by 
globules of air in the arterial vessels of the brain, death having, 
without doubt, arisen from that cause (see a paper on pulmonary 
emphysema by Dr. Piedagual, read before the Academy of 
Medicine, Paris, September 9, 1845); and we are familiarly 
acquainted with similar effects being produced on the horse 
when the knacker, in order to destroy him, blows air into an 
open vein. The same condition, though from a different cause, 
will occur in the case of an obstruction of fluid matter in the bron- 
chial tubes. This, at the same time that it excludes the air and 
induces asphyxia, will confine within the bronchi and air-cells a 
portion of impure air, which will necessarily seek to become extra- 
vasated into the least resisting tissue with which it is in contact ; 
and there is little reason to doubt a portion of it will find its way 
into the ramifications of the pulmonary veins, from whence it will 
soon reach the nervous centres, and produce syncope. I have no 
doubt but this was the case with one of the calves at S , Case 
IY, which fainted and died immediately after being bled. I cannot 
on any other grounds account for the event, as the quantity of blood 
drawn was so small as to preclude the idea of its having died from 
the actual loss, although that loss might have had the most pre- 
judicial effect on an animal previously at the verge of fainting. It 
