699 
(ESOPHAGITIS; OR ACUTE INFLAMMATION OF THE 
MUCOUS MEMBRANE OF THE (ESOPHAGUS IN 
THE HORSE. 
By M. Renault. 
If there are some maladies with regard to the situation and na- 
ture of which the observant practitioner can scarcely be deceived, 
there are others, and their number is not small, the diagnosis of 
which is embarrassing to the veterinary surgeon, whether because 
certain complex phenomena render the real nature of them obscure, 
or they have been badly and incompletely described by our authors. 
The embarrassment will be greatest, and the chances of error more 
numerous, if the affection which we are called upon to treat has 
neither been observed nor described by any one, and forms no part 
of medical science, and when, at the same time, the organ affected 
has a structure and uses which would not lead us to expect the ex- 
istence or even the possibility of a disease of that organ. 
Such is inflammation of the mucous membrane of the cesopha- 
gean canal in the horse. This affection, so rarely observed and 
so little known in human medicine, is without an example, so far as 
I know, in our veterinary records ; and in that I see nothing to create 
surprise. No membrane is less exposed to the action of irritating 
causes; and even under the influence of causes direct, immediate, 
and long acting, no membrane, on account of its peculiar organi- 
zation, is so little susceptible of inflammation. I have seen horses 
and dogs that had been destroyed by the most violent poisons, and 
yet, on examination, the oesophagus has not presented the slight- 
est trace/ of disease, although the gastro-intestinal mucous coat has 
been corroded in various parts. Pieces of potato, turnip, beet-root, 
&c., are not unfrequently arrested in their passage down the oeso- 
phagean canal, and they remain imprisoned there a considerable 
period of time, and are, at length, extracted through an aperture 
made into the oesophagean canal ; yet, even then, no inflammation 
of the membrane has marked the situation of the intruder. 
One circumstance I particularly recollect. A little bat horse had 
swallowed a potato, which was arrested in its course about half 
way down the oesophagus. The poor animal had been two hours 
under the care of the farrier, who had attempted, in every possible 
way, to force it down ; and, at length, when I was sent for, he had 
placed a piece of wood on the right side of the oesophagus, and 
opposite to the potato, and was hammering away with a mallet on 
the left side, in order to crush the intruder. Just at that moment 
I arrived, and put a stop to this brutal, fatal violence, and, trembling 
with fear lest I should tear a membrane which I had seen so treated. 
