After the affection reaches this stage, the swollen œsophagus, when loaded, presses upon the trachea and larynx so severely as materially to impede the breathing, and it is at this period that instinct develops a strange artifice. The horse has no power to vomit; the fibers of the healthy œsophagus impel but in one direction; still, no sooner has the gullet become distended than the impaired breathing creates a desire to remove the obstruction. The chin is lowered; the crest is thus curved to the utmost, when the muscles of the neck are brought into violent action, and the impacted provender is shot back through the mouth and nostrils. [Illustration: THE HORSE ENDEAVORING TO CAST UP THE PROVENDER WITH WHICH THE SAC OF A STRICTURED ŒSOPHAGUS IS LOADED. ] This description reads bad enough, but regard for veracity obliges the statement that is not yet complete. Hunger, when excessive, causes the stomach to pour forth its acid secretion; this effect is produced by the sight of provender; but the gastric juice not being given food to act upon, passes into the intestines; there it provokes the most intense spasm; so that it is common to see the hind legs raised to violently strike the aching belly, while the labored breathing announces that abstinence from any kind of exertion has become a primary necessity of life. The only palliative for so pitiable a condition is carefully-prepared food--gruel and such substances given in small quantities at a time. The horse, however, when it requires such support, generally has been so much lowered by disease as not to be worth its ordinary keep. No one cares merely to prolong the equine life; the animal is only permitted to live because of the profit man can make out of its labor; yet, for the full meanness of the last motive, let the horse proprietor seek a better class of servants for his grooms. Let him abolish the stunted, long-faced, narrow-headed compounds of mischief and of treachery which are now the common inhabitants of every mews. Before doing so, however, he must amend himself; he must be prepared to teach by example; the present groom only fulfills the wishes and panders to the pride of the master. Were a higher order of stable-men desired, the longing could easily be supplied; but fashion pronounces in favor of the present, natty affectations, and men with more solid qualities naturally refuse to compete in an arena so unworthily occupied. Before quitting this subject, a caution must be given against all probangs as at present made. The cow probang is evidently unsuited to the equine gullet. The horse instrument has the bell of the cow probang attached to a piece of whalebone; when a narrow channel is to be entered, the bulk of the leading substance is of all importance. That which goes in front, not that which lies behind, has then to be considered; so, in spite of the whalebone, the present horse probang is nothing more than the cow instrument in disguise.