424 
THE VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
ON Wednesday, the 15th of the last month, the Veterinary 
Medical Society held its first meeting for discussion. We have 
great pleasure in having obtained permission to insert, nearly at 
length, the Essay on Fistulous Parotid Duct, read by Mr. W. Per- 
civall. We will not say that it embodies all that was known on 
this interesting although rare complaint, because not one of our 
veterinary writers has touched upon it; but we will affirm, that 
it contains almost all that could be wished on the causes, 
symptoms, progress and treatment of the disease. The account of 
the operations which he, first of our English veterinarians, and 
hitherto, we believe, the only one, has undertaken, will be read 
with peculiar interest. 
A somewhat irregular, but very useful, discussion succeeded, in 
which Messrs. J. and W. Percivall, Field, Godwin, Henderson, 
Fenwick, and Youatt, bore the principal share. Some beautiful 
plates of the parotideal region were exhibited, and a careful dis¬ 
section of the parotid gland in situ, with the whole course of the 
duct; and also of the gland everted, to shew its connexion witli the 
fifth and seventh pairs of nerves, the jugular, and the carotids. 
It seemed to be generally admitted, that the fistulous orifice will 
usually be closed by the proper application of the caustic or the 
cautery ; and that it will even, in a few instances, spontaneously 
heal; but whether accompanied by the establishment of the old 
passage, or the accidental formation of a new one, or a cessation of 
the salivaiy secretion in the parotid gland on the affected side, did 
not clearly appear. 
' It was the prevailing opinion, that every possible means of cure 
should be attempted before the surgeon had recourse to extirpation, 
- an operation that had succeeded in the hands of a skilful anatomist, 
but which was a most delicate and difficult one, and in the hands 
of a skilful anatomist alone could by possibility succeed. 
The injection of a caustic liquid into the parotid, through the 
medium of its duct (one gentleman, indeed, spoke of two ducts 
to each parotid, and gave us high authority for it too, although 
he could not induce many to forget or to distrust the result of their 
anatomical researches), and thus disorganizing the parotid, and 
causing extensive sloughing of its substance, was, in refmctory 
cases, deemed preferable to extirpation. Some important branches 
both of blood-vessels and nerves, could scarcely be avoided by the 
knife, but nature, even roused^ to a destructive process, would be 
careful to spare eveiy part essential to the well-being of the animal 
economy. 
