328 
CHOKING. 
essays, but the random gleanings of a carefully attended 
practice. 
I shall now direct the attention of your readers to two 
cases of 
CHOKING. 
On Good-Friday, 1853, at 10 o’clock, a.m., an Irish coster- 
monger led a donkey into our forge which had been suffering 
from an obstruction in its throat for the last three days. It 
was with the greatest difficulty the poor animal could walk, 
so great was the weakness brought on by the delay in admi- 
nistering to his wants, and so excruciating was the pain he 
suffered. The leading symptoms were copious salivation, 
head protruded, neck spasmodically contracted, fore legs ab- 
ducted, respiration very laboured, and the pulse frequent, 
being also small and wiry* 
The owner, in relating the history of the case to me, said 
that he fed his donkey on potatoes and chaff mixed together, 
and when he first noticed him to be ill, he tried to get him 
to drink, but the water returned through the nostrils ; — natur- 
ally, none was swallowed. I with difficulty got my hand into 
the mouth, and, on carrying it very far back, I distinctly felt 
a pellet, consisting of chaff and pieces of potato, wedged, 
tightly in the pharynx. All my efforts to grasp and extricate 
it were useless, and, in a moment of difficulty, I laid hold of 
one of my workmen’s “ pritchels,” which I introduced into the 
mouth, guarded by my fingers, and, without any ceremony, 
thrust this formidable instrument through and through the 
mass till it was so divided, that, it might easily have been 
swallowed had the pharyngeal muscles not been paralysed 
by the long and renewed contraction they had previously ex- 
ercised on the obstructing body. 
This operation, although so simple, was too much for the 
poor donkey to bear up against, and he fell whilst I was 
thus somewhat rudely attempting his relief, and I had to com- 
plete my manipulations while he was lying. Many portions 
of the potato remained in the oesophagus as inertly as if 
they had been in a caoutchouc tube. Swelling of the throat 
was already advanced, and I applied an active blister all over 
it, which had the desired effect, and set up such an amount 
of irritation that shortly the pieces of potato were ‘either 
coughed up or swallowed ; the former being accompanied 
with violent spasmodic efforts, as if to vomit. 
Case 2. — In the month of May, 1853, 1 was called at half- 
past six o’clock one morning, to attend a chesnut mare, the 
property of Mr. N a city barrister. She was found by the 
