INTRODUCTION. 11 



There is still another party to be considered while referring to 

 the study of " j)reparation." It is neither the animal, the surgeon, 

 the assistants, the instrument case, nor the lint and bandages. It 

 is the owner of the ailing animal. And to " prepare " him for the 

 event is oftentimes a performance requiring a larger amount of 

 judgment, tact, knowledge of human nature and patience than 

 the average man possesses. On the one hand there are those of 

 the optimist class who have quite an unwarranted opinion of the 

 power of surgery, and who, in despite of the most unfavorable 

 prognosis, insist upon a resort to the knife, even upon inadequate 

 occasions. And on the other hand are those who interpret any 

 suggestion which involves a solution of continuity professionally 

 proposed, however artistically consummated, as only a mild form 

 of sentence of death to the patient. But however antipodean 

 may be their views in other respects, they are in common quite 

 assured that for an operation which fails to restore the dilapidated 

 patient to a condition a little better than new, whatsoever may 

 have been the accident or lesion which he may have encountered, 

 and whatsoever may have been the skill and inteUigence exhibited 

 in the treatment of his wounds or ailments, the only legitimate 

 and orderly conclusion is a suit at law for malpractice. It is the 

 function of the doctor to cure disease ; if he treats disease without 

 curing it, he is an incompetent; this is the irrefragable logic! 

 Though the living animal had failed to return any remuneration 

 for his subsistence, and for the care lavished (?) on him diu'ing 

 the period of his disability, yet when reduced to the state of a 

 cadaver he should be compelled, if possible, in an indirect way to 

 net his bereaved owner a sum Kkely to prove largely anodyne to 

 the poignancy of the grief which the loss of so much property 

 had excited. 



But aside from this, the owner of the living property, the value 

 of which is about to be jeopardized, is entitled to a full and candid 

 statement of the nature of the case, with its possibilities and its 

 dangers, and it is in the interest of the surgeon himself to observe 

 perfect frankness with his employer — not, however, to the extent 

 of compromising his position as doctus in the case, or foregoing 

 his self-respect by making concessions upon points of scientific 

 acquisition to a layman, however generally intelligent or specially 

 interested. The surgeon must assert himself as the representa- 

 tive and exponent of an honorable and learned profession, able 



