100 
POLYPUS AND ABSCESS IN A COW. 
between the thyroid and arytenoid cartilages, by which means the 
anterior edge, or rima glottidis of the off-side, was forced towards 
the opposite one, the off-side edge lying exactly in the centre of 
the glottal opening. This tumour was situated in the arytenoid 
muscles, and was of the size of a small walnut. On opening it, it 
was found to contain very healthy white pus, a portion of which 
was seen to ooze out into the larynx through a small opening near 
to the root of the polypus hereafter described. 
Within the larynx there was a polypus, a little larger than an 
ordinary-sized marble, and attached by rather a broad root to the 
arytenoid cartilage, near to their junction posteriorly. In conse- 
quence of the abovementioned abscess pressing against the supe- 
rior off-side edge of the rima glottidis, the polypus was scarcely 
discernible on looking into the larynx ; but on looking at it up the 
trachea, it was distinctly visible, and filling up nearly the whole 
cavity, leaving only a small triangular opening, the widest part 
(towards the polypus) being little more than an eighth of an inch 
wide. 
The off-edge of the rima glottidis was more in the centre of the 
glottal opening, most probably by the polypus being attached 
thereto, as well as by the pressure of the abscess. 
Within the abscess there were two small pieces of cartilage, as 
if ulcerated off, half an inch long, white, and apparently sound. I 
never saw any thing resembling them before. From what they 
came off I could not ascertain, as I have not preserved the parts. 
Attached to the liver and diaphragm, on the off-side, there was 
an abscess containing about a pint of white healthy pus, a portion 
of which penetrated the liver and diaphragm, that, independent 
of the abscess, were sound. 
Observations . — Polypi in the larynx are, I fancy, rather unusual 
occurrences. Although this was in a difficult place for extraction 
or examination, I am inclined to think that, had I known of its 
exact nature and size, I could have removed it. I ought most de- 
cidedly to have cast the heifer, and not to have trusted to a slight 
examination when she was merely standing, and in an unruly 
state ; and I can assure my readers, that the introduction of the 
arm into the mouth, without the animal being cast or properly 
secured, is not a little hazardous, and might endanger the frac- 
turing of it, as I well recollect, in one instance, in examining a fat 
cow that was choaked, and which ever since has been a lesson to 
me. 
Had this cow been cast and the polypus detected, I think that 
a noose of whipcord could have been passed around its pedicle, by 
which means it would have been pulled more forwards, and with 
some instrument cut off, or have been torn away; but, then, I 
