The mucous membrane of the oesophagus is formed so as to resist the action of irritants, and unless the action be peculiarly strong we have not considerable inflammation. When strong acids, or alkalies, or substances at a high temperature, are swallowed they may cause superficial necrosis and considerable inflammation of the mucous membrane. The small-pox eruption may extend into the oesophagus, producing inflammation.

Strong acids or Alkalies, when swallowed, pass rapidly through the oesophagus, and so produce much less serious results than they do in the stomach. Acids produce whitish, yellowish, or brownish sloughs of the epithelium, sometimes penetrating to the mucous membrane itself. Caustic alkalies, on the other hand, dissolve the epithelium, producing a greyish gelatinous material which lies on the surface. If they penetrate to the mucous membrane they reduce it to a soft, brownish, half-diffluent substance. If recovery occur, there are at first ulcers with more or less violent inflammation, and afterwards healing with contraction of the ulcers and possibly considerable narrowing of the tube.

Small-pox pustules in the oesophagus are very similar to those in the mouth, and, like them, they readily lose their epithelial covering and become converted into ulcers. They are accompanied by signs of inflammation of the mucous membrane generally.

A few cases of a peculiar inflammation of the oesophagus have been recorded in which the surface epithelium has been shed in the form of a consistent cast of a greater or lesser part of the tube. To this condition the name of (Esophagitis dissecans superficialis has been applied by Rosenberg.

Syphilis and Tuberculosis of the oesophagus are very rare.