In asylum practice and in certain medical affections of the tongue, pharynx, and (esophagus which render deglutition impossible, recourse is had to forced feeding by the stomach tube. This is inserted either through the nose or mouth, and food is administered two or three times in twenty-four hours. Milk, eggs, beef juices, and concentrated meat teas are suitable foods for administration. A good mixture to employ consists of 1 pint of milk, one egg, I ounce of milk sugar, and a pinch of common salt. This mixture can be fortified if desired by the addition of a dried milk preparation, e.g., Plasmon, Somatose (p. 158). The food should be introduced slowly.

In nasal feeding the above rules apply. The apparatus is simple: the small glass barrel of a urethral syringe with about 10 inches of narrow rubber tubing attached. This is well oiled, and passed gently along the floor of the nose in a backward and slightly outward direction; it slips over the posterior surface of the velum palati, and from thence into the pharynx and gullet. Patients soon become tolerant of this method, provided there is no obstruction 111 the nasal passages.