When the whip seemed to yield, something more than the obstruction gave way; the walls of the canal were ruptured; an almost inevitable death then awaits the unfortunate animal. The food is rejected; drink is refused; the creature stands motionless, the picture of horror; it seems to comprehend and to await its approaching fate. The neck begins to swell; the swelling creeps on till it invests the entire body. Gas has found entrance into the cellular tissue, through the divided gullet. Death at last ensues, because the inflation impedes the vital functions, and, being corruptive, is incompatible with the preservation of living organism. [Illustration: The dilated œsophagus or sac superior to the stricture. The Stricture. The tube of its natural size. STRICTURE OF THE ŒSOPHAGUS] More often, however, the whip only tears the internal membrane; the obstruction has been dislodged and removed, but a worse evil has been created. The horse for a time refuses food, and the anxious master wonders "what can be the matter!" At last the pain may cease, the appetite return, for nature may strive to repair the damage. The whip usually tears a flap of membrane, which, obedient to the laws of gravity, hangs pendant within the œsophagus. Our common parent, however, does not, after the human pattern, repair the evil which man induces. She has no mortal hand wherewith to restore the rent membrane to its place. The sides of the wound, however, strive to unite, and by the date when this junction is accomplished, the mucous membrane being inelastic, the magnitude of the canal is seriously diminished. Nature seems to feel that the chief strain of deglutition will be upon this lessened spot, which, therefore, she endeavors to support and strengthen. Lymph is deposited about the place, till ultimately a firm and solid stricture is formed. This, however, though bad enough, is not the worst. Lymph, after a time, has a tendency to contract. With the diminution of the external ring, of course the internal canal decreases; it is strained at every meal; but straining only provokes its contractive power, till at length hardly the best comminuted morsel could pass the opening. Such, however, rarely enters the strictured œsophagus; the difficulty of deglutition renders it impossible for the appetite to be appeased. No sooner is the food placed before the animal than, because of hunger, induced by prolonged starvation, it is bolted, almost unprepared by mastication and insalivation. Nourishment in that state cannot pass the stricture; it lodges above the contraction; still, hunger impels the horse to eat on. It does so till the œsophagus becomes distended. Gullets have been taken from animals, stretched till they are thinner than the paper upon which this book is printed, and so much enlarged as to admit a boy's clenched fist.