ECTASIiE, DIVERTICULA, AND RUPTURES 
OF THE OESOPHAGUS. 
17:3 
Butter’s case injections of nitrate of silver proved useless, but the fistula 
closed spontaneously in four months. 
(3.) ECTASLE, DIVERTICULA, AND RUPTURES OF 
THE (ESOPHAGUS. 
The term ectasia is applied where the skin, muscular and mucous 
tissues have undergone dilatation. Ectasiae sometimes result from 
stricture of the oesophagus, and, like it, usually develop slowly, Urey 
occur both in large animals and in carnivora. 
Langrehr saw a cow which for three months had always vomited after 
taking food, and especially when drink was given soon after feeding. The 
cow was very thin, and when slaughtered exhibited a dilatation of the 
oesophagus close under the diaphragm, produced by distension of all its coats, 
and capable of holding nearly three quarts of fluid. Wagner examined a 
horse which had a dilatation of the oesophagus in front of the 4th cervical 
vertebra, and also just before its passage through the diaphragm. The 
condition had led to an attack of mechanical pneumonia and death. 
Sometimes dilatations take a spindle form, sometimes they aie sharply 
defined. Where greatly developed, difficulty in swallowing occurs, and 
wasting afterwards sets in. 
Diverticula are here taken to mean ruptures of the muscular coat of 
the oesophagus, and passage of the elastic but unbroken mucosa through 
the opening. This has been described as oesophagus ventriculosus, or 
oesophagocele, and is oftenest met with in horses and cattle. It some¬ 
times results from greedy consumption of rough and prickly clover. 
Such ruptures occur in the neck portion of the tube, but more frequently 
close to its entrance into the stomach. 
Both the muscular and mucous coats may become ruptured at the same 
time, or the mucous coat may yield somewhat later than the musculai. 
Fuchs discovered a dilatation of the oesophagus after death, where the neck 
portion had a circumference of 9| inches, the thoracic portion of 12 4 me res, 
and the portion in front of the diaphragm was distended to 20f inches. 
Dr. S. describes a diverticulum in the horse formed m consequence of the 
muscular coat being ruptured for a distance of 11 inches in the thoiax. e 
sac-like dilatation held five pints of water, and the horse suffered from symptoms 
of broken wind. Schellenberg saw a similar diverticulum m the dog, produced 
by a bite and subsequent abscess formation. On post-mortem six months 
later, a diverticulum was discovered as large as a man s fist. It had resulted 
from cicatricial contraction. 
Of twenty-six cases collected by Rubeli, the diveiticulum was, in 
eleven, close before the diaphragm, in seven m the thoracic portion, and 
in eight in the neck portion, usually in the lower part of it. . The ana¬ 
tomical disposition of the oesophagus in horses explains this distribution. 
The mucous membrane may subsequently be ruptured. Illustrations of 
these several classes of cases are recoided. 
