MSS DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



ABSTRACTION OF BLOOD, OR BLEEDING (ARTERIOTOMY.) 



Blood is abstracted by opening the conducting vessels, arterial 

 and venous. When taken from arteries, the process is called 

 arteriotomy ; when by the latter, phlebotomy. Some oleedings 

 include both these operations, as general scarifications of the soft 

 parts, bleeding at the toe point, divisions of the vessels of the cor- 

 nea, etc. Blood-letting is called local when it is practiced on or 

 very near the affected part ; and it is supposed to act more immedi- 

 ately than general bleeding because it produces more effect with the 

 loss of less blood. Local bleeding is, therefore, usually practiced 

 on the minor branches of the arteries and veins, as on the tem- 

 poral artery, the plate vein, the vena saphena, etc. Leeches are 

 a means of local bleeding not often used by us in veterinary prac- 

 tice ; but there is no reason whatever why they should not be em- 

 ployed. When applied to the eye, and occasionally to other parts, 

 also, they adhere readily, abstracting blood rapidly, and, there- 

 fore, might be valuable aids in violent local inflammation. Cup- 

 ping is also practiced, in France and other parts of the Continent, 

 with very large glasses, and it is there supposed to act remedially 

 in many local inflammations. By general bleeding we under- 

 stand the depletion of the system at large, and this we practice in 

 extensive inflammations. 



Division of the temporal artery. — The proper spot for either its 

 puncture or division is directly where the vessel leaves the parotid 

 gland, to curve upward and forward around the jaw, a little be- 

 low its condyle. When it is punctured, it usually affords much 

 blood ; and in such case, enough having been obtained, divide the 

 trunk, when, the receding portions becoming pressed by the in- 

 teguments, and lessening by their own contractility, the hemor- 

 ihage is stopped. It should be punctured by a lancet; a fleam 

 may fix itself in the bone. Its division can be readily made, also, 

 either by a lancet or scalpel. 



Bleeding by the palate is also a species of arterio-phlebotomy, 

 and is a very favorite spot for abstracting blood with most igno- 

 rant persons, who vehemently recommend it in spasmodic colic or 

 gripes, and in megrims. In such cases, however, a want of knowl- 

 edge of the anatomy of the parts has occasioned a serious hemov 

 rhage to occur ; it may prove a fatal one if the artery proper to the 

 jrart be divided incompletely. The palatine artery and nerve run 



