INTRODUCTION. 43 



ate suffering and prolong life, have not been able 

 hitherto to find a place in veterinary surgery. For want 

 of co-operation on the part of the patient and his slight 

 pecuniary value if imperfectly restored, and the expense of 

 keep, prove sad opponents of our advancement in this 

 respect. Thus the medical and surgical branches of 

 professional work have not been artificially delegated to 

 distinct sections of practitioners, and as they depend on 

 the same laws of disease, and are at every phase in 

 close interunion, we have not deemed it right to separate 

 surgery from medicine in the work before us. Surgical 

 treatment comprises operations, the use of appliances, and 

 dressings of various kinds. 



Operations may be performed with special instruments or 

 by manipulatory methods ; they have for their aim either 

 removal of the cause of disorder as in oesophagotomy, or 

 palliation of its effects, as opening the trachea in a case 

 of laryngeal obstruction. Again, they may have a pre- 

 ventive effect, as in removal of a tumour which by its 

 spread tends to involve important organs, and ovariotomy 

 in an animal with some mechanical impediment, to expul- 

 sion of a foetus. Operative surgical skill may, to a certain 

 extent, be acquired in the dissecting-room by the study of 

 topographical or regional anatomy, but can only be per- 

 fected by operations on the living subject, preferably in 

 the course of general practice; though some educational 

 authorities consider that the pain inflicted on a few animals 

 during a course of operative vivisectional surgery, will be 

 amply atoned for by subsequent more skilful execution of 

 professional duties. In the performance of any operation 

 the practitioner must have determined beforehand the 

 most favorable methods for the particular case, the com- 

 plications liable to arise, and the measures of after treat- 

 ment which will be necessary if everything succeeds 

 according to his expectations. It is in the occurrence of 

 complications that the skill of the operator is best tested ; 

 coolness, promptness in emergency, and neglect of sur- 

 roundings, are valuable qualities under these circumstances. 

 With large patients special means of restraint during all 



