328 
ON THE USE OF THE PROBANG. 
suffering intense pain. 1 introduced the trocar and canula into the 
rumen, leaving the canula in the perforation, and an astonishing 
quantity of gas escaped, and the left side of the carcass became flac¬ 
cid : but this afforded only temporary relief. The pain increased 
tenfold, and she lay down and groaned most piteously. I advised 
the owner to have her slaughtered, but he refused, she being a pet 
cow, and had dropped her calf but a day or two before. Death, 
however, soon closed the scene. 
Post-mortem appearances .—An extensive laceration of the oeso¬ 
phagus in its thoracic portion. The thorax and the oesophagus at 
this part were in a state of putrescence: no doubt this mischief was 
done with the walking-stick, when the first turnip got into her 
throat, two days prior to death—inflammation and mortification su¬ 
pervening. Another turnip lodging at the same portion of the 
oesophagus, which had lost its contractile power, the probang was 
easily forced through. The turnip and some hay, and water, were 
found in the thorax. 
It being much more difficult to introduce the probang into the 
stomach of the horse than the cow, I will relate a case or two in 
Avhich it was successfully introduced into a horse's stomach. I 
accompanied my brother in the year 1827 to see a thorough-bred 
colt of Mr. Hervey’s, of Brad well Grove, Oxfordshire. We found 
him cringing, holding his head out, and pawing the ground, evi¬ 
dently in great pain. 
Satisfied, from the symptoms he manifested, that there was an 
extraneous body in the oesophagus, we accordingly introduced the 
probang, and found the obstruction in the thorax. It required 
great force to remove it. On the withdrawal of the probang, 
there was blood on it. We suspected a lesion of the cuticular coat, 
and gave gruel to soothe it, leaving strict orders that the animal 
should have no other food, and no water. 
On the next day he refused his food, and his pulse was quick¬ 
ened. I bled him, and had gruel given to him, and oily laxatives, 
in order to get rid of the foreign substance in the bowels. 
On the following day there was great soreness of the oesophagus. 
We continued the laxatives and gruel, inserted a seton in the 
breast, and blistered the lower part of the neck. 
On the fourth day after the application of the probang, the colt 
voided a piece of horn with his faeces, that proved to be the toe of 
his hoof, which the blacksmith had sawn off, on the day that we 
were called on to attend him. No person about him had any idea 
that this had occurred until the day he voided it. In a fortnight 
afterwards he was quite recovered. 
Cart horses, from long abstinence from food, eat voraciously 
afterwards, and often get pellets of hay lodged in the oesophagus. 
