gavage

(French: from gaver, "to gorge, to feed forcibly")

gastrogavage
1. The artificial feeding of a person through a tube passed into the stomach.
2. Feeding someone with a nutrient solution into the stomach through a tube through a surgically created opening.
3. Forced feeding with a stomach tube.
gastrostogavage
1. Forced feeding with a stomach tube.
2. The therapeutic use of a high-potency diet administered with a stomach tube.
gavage
1. Forced feeding that consists of the delivery of a nutrient solution (as through a nasal tube) to someone who cannot or will not eat.
2. The feeding of an animal, or a person, through a tube passed into the stomach.
3. The therapeutic use of a high-potency diet administered with a stomach tube.

Various applications of gavage

  • Humans: for example, generally applied by passing a tube into the esophagus.
  • Psychiatric hospitals: some patients may be force fed if they refuse to eat because of delusions or are trying to die.
  • Prisoners: force fed when going on hunger strikes.
  • Torture: using a naso-gastric tube considered torture because of pain in the nasal passage resulting in severe bleeding.
  • Farm animals: force feeding of ducks and geese filling their crops, or gullets, (a pouch in the throat of many birds); resulting in an enlarged, fatty liver; to make their livers bigger for processing and selling as foie gras; which is used for gourmet cooking and eating.

See percutane endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) for information about a similar procedure.