FISTULOUS PAROTID DUCT. * 389 
solid form, may be applied to the fistulous opening, with a view 
of producing granulation; but, I believe, they are all, either se¬ 
parate or combined, inferior to the actual cautery. Indeed, I 
feel myself warranted in asserting, that the majority of these 
cases have owed their cure to the application of a red-hot iron. 
It is a remedy which seems, naturally as it were, to have sug¬ 
gested itself to the common farrier, to sear up’^ the opening, 
and one that is found by experience to be peculiarly well adapted 
for the case before us. ' In the first place, by its melting and 
agglutinating effects, it forms an eschar, or sort of plug, over the 
fistulous orifice, which serves as a temporary stoppage to the 
efflux of the secretion; and in the next place, it casts oft' a slough 
from the part, which leaves a surface the best disposed of all 
others to throw up granulations : in fact, nothing, I repeat, that 
I know, is so likely to promote fresh and healthy action, and parti¬ 
cularly when parts have grown inactive or callous from continued 
disorder, as the cautery. The iron commonly employed is the 
one denominated the budding iron.’’ The chief object is to 
adapt it to the dimensions of the sore ; and often advantage will 
be derived from introducing it, for some short distance, into the 
fistula: it should be applied at a dull red heat, and repeated as 
often as the inflammatoiy action subsides without being attended 
with the desired effects. This, then, forms the mode of cure by 
granulation. 
But, it occasionally happens that we are foiled in closing the 
fistulous aperture, in consequence of obstruction existing at the 
natural outlet of the salivary canal; at least, this was the case in 
the instance of a horse of my own, in whom the parotid duct 
discharged itself through an opening on the outside of the cheek, 
which we failed in healing up in consequence, as it afterwards 
appeared, of the closure of the natural termination of the duct. 
What course is to be adopted in this instance ? 
Conceiving this to be the nature of the case just alluded to, and 
it appearing to me, as such, as rather an awkward affair to manage, 
' I consulted human surgery on the subject, and I found (I think 
at the suggestion of Munro), that in cases of established salivary 
fistulae, the common practice was, to pass a seton from the ex¬ 
ternal fistulous opening through the cheek into the mouth, retain¬ 
ing it there until the internal as well as the external orifice, 
had become fistulous; and, finally, healing up the latter by the 
application of caustic—the argentum nitratum. No one could 
deny that this was sound pathological reasoning, and as such, 
I must confess, it appeared to me very feasible: I found it widely 
different, however, when I came to apply it to veterinary practice. 
It proved to be one of those anomahes which would have speedily 
