Several other methods of performing this operation will be found in Möller and Dollar’s “Regional Surgery,” pp. 831–835.
CHAPTER IV.
DIGESTIVE APPARATUS.
RINGING PIGS.
Fig. 300.—“Ringing” the pig.
This operation is customary in countries where pigs are allowed to roam more or less at liberty, and it is necessary to adopt some precaution to prevent them from uprooting the soil and thus causing damage, but the practice tends nowadays to disappear. It simply consists in passing through the nose some object which on being rubbed against anything causes pain and thus checks the animal’s natural proclivity.
Numerous methods have been suggested. One of the simplest is as follows: The animal having been cast, suitably secured and muzzled, two thick iron wires sharpened at the ends are passed through the snout, and the two ends are then twisted together in the form of two rings. These can, if necessary, be united.
Another method, perhaps even more efficacious, consists in bending a thick wire into the shape of the letter U, and preparing a small metal plate with two holes corresponding in position to the distance between the two nostrils. The ends of the wire, being sharpened, are passed through the nostrils and securely united to the metal plate by being bent into a spiral or simply at right angles.
ŒSOPHAGUS.
The operations practised on the œsophagus comprise passage of the œsophageal sound or probang, taxis, crushing of foreign bodies within the œsophagus, and œsophagotomy.