464 
REPORT OF THE 
horse was allowed half his usual food. Some days afterwards 
the integument appeared to adhere to the parts beneath through 
the greater^ part of the extent of the wound; but an abscess 
formed in one part: it broke, and some small pieces of wood 
were discharged with the pus. On the 19th day the horse 
quitted our infirmary, nearly cured. 
On the 18th of June, a mule belonging to a manufacturer at 
Neuville received a kick on the middle of the neck, and in the 
track of the left jugular. The contusion was treated by the 
application of cataplasms and emollient lotions. A swelling 
soon appeared and spread through the whole length of the neck. 
It was deemed necessary by the surgeon who was then attending 
the case to cauterize it with a red-hot iron, and to establish a 
connexion from one of the points perforated by the iron to 
another, by means of a large cotton thread introduced by 
a seton needle. From that moment deglutition became diffi¬ 
cult : soon afterwards a small quantity of alimentary matter was 
returned through the nostrils, and a discharge of the same 
through the inferior orifice of the seton was not slow 1o follow’: 
it was evident that the oesophagus had been perforated. The 
mule was then brought to our infirmary. 
An opening was carefully made from one of these orifices to 
the other, when a considerable portion of aliment escaped. 
The two fore fingers being then introduced into the wound to 
the depth of an inch and a half, the carotid, adhering to an 
indurated subcutaneous cellular tissue, could be felt pulsating; 
and by the side of it was the oesophagus, the parietes of it also 
thickened, and in it was an opening an inch and a half in 
length, with fringed borders. 
Sutures were ineffectually placed both in the oesophagus and 
the external wound : the tissues, in the highest state of inflamma¬ 
tion, and which had led on to gangrene, gave way to the impulse 
even of the liquids which the horse sw’allowed : the strength of 
the system all at once gave way, and death ensued in the night 
of the 7th and 8th of July. 
On inspection of the carcass, an anormal transposition of 
the carotid, the oesophagus, and the pneumo-gastric nerve was 
brought to view. A rudiment only of the sub-scapulo-hyoi’deus 
