ON POLYPI OF THE NOSTRILS. 
633 
ing membrane. How this may be with regard to the fungous 
bleeding polypus of the human subject, I am not able to deter¬ 
mine. The twisting of the pedicle, and tearing it out by the root, 
may be good practice with regard to the human being, but cannot 
be justified where the pedicle is a mere cord by which the po¬ 
lypus is suspended, and forms no continuation or part of its sub¬ 
stance. 
The polypus, when it hangs free in the nasal cavity, is usually 
of a pyriform or pear-like shape. It is that form which it would 
naturally assume from the gradual distention of the membrane, 
pressing on every side of the tumour, and opposing its chief re¬ 
sistance at the base. 
It varies in weight, from a few drachms to three or four pounds. 
I will suppose a veterinary surgeon required to examine a horse 
that has some difficulty of breathing, apparently arising not from 
disease of the lungs, but obstruction of some of the air-passages. 
He finds that there is a greater discharge than usual of mucus 
from the nostrils, or from one of them, and the mucus sometimes 
highly tinged with blood. Occasionally pure blood runs from the 
nose; and if he places his hand before the muzzle to ascertain the 
heat of the breath, he feels a,n unequal rush of air from the two 
nostrils, or probably it is felt at one nostril alone. He begins to 
suspect the real state of the case; and, bringing the horse into the 
full light, he discovers, higher or knver in the nostril, the rounded 
base of a polypus. 
He must, however, take care. He must not mistake the carti¬ 
laginous prolongation of the anterior turbinated bone for a po¬ 
lypus when he sees it spread upon the false nostril, and enlarged 
and prominent from the general thickening of the mucous coat; 
nor the prolongation of the posterior turbinated bone, not quite so 
much developed; nor any rounded clot of blood which may have 
escaped through the valve under the posterior turbinator, and be 
retained there by the separated fibrine. This has been done by 
men of some repute. 
The case, however, shall be clear enough. How is the surgeon 
to proceed ? Can he lay hold of the polypus by the finger, or the 
forceps, or (for these tumours do not possess much sensibility) 
the tenaculum ? To ascertain this he will cast the horse, and fix 
the head in a position to take the greatest advantage of the light. 
If he cannot fairly get at it by any of these means, he will let it 
alone. It will continue to grow—the membrane constituting 
the pedicle will be lengthened—and the polypus will descend, 
and be easily got at. Time and patience will effect wonders in 
this"and many similar cases. 
The human surgeon speaks of the uncertainty of the appear- 
vol. IV. 4 II 
I 
