SURGICAL TREATMENT 165 



long after the operations — twenty-two and thirty days 

 respectively — to prove the success of the undertaking. 

 They were then chloroformed to death, and post-mortem 

 examinations made of the carcasses. In each case the 

 result of the autopsy was gratifying. 



The brown pony gelding (a) was slaughtered on the 

 seventh day following the experiment. If I remember 

 rightly, he showed somewhat peculiar symptoms shortly 

 after the operation. It was difficult, in fact, to say 

 whether he was suffering from an ordinary sporadic 

 attack of pneumonia, or whether the pneumonia was of 

 a septic nature, caused by absorption from the operation 

 wounds. I think that I may say the result of the 

 autopsy on the seventh day rather justified the assump- 

 tion that the pneumonia was sporadic in its nature, and 

 that the operation was not the cause of it. 



We have here three operations of a serious nature. 

 The end result of one may be classified ' doubtful,' with 

 a leaning towards ' favourable '; while the remaining two 

 may be termed in the highest degree 'successful.' The 

 surgeon has shown us that, so far as the operation itself 

 is concerned, we have nothing to dread. 



Can it be turned to practical account ? One case only 

 is on record of the operation being successfully performed 

 for the removal of a calculus or obstruction that was 

 actually giving rise to dangerous colic. This was by 

 Felizet in 1849. The position of the calculus was the 

 commencement of the small colon. Several other cases 

 are on record where the same operation has been 

 attempted, the animal, unfortunately, dying in each 

 instance. It appears that in each case the failure of t 

 operation was directly attributable to its having been to 

 long delayed. 



Several years have now passed since Professor Mac- 



