PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 2'83 



Sponges or pledgets of cotton. The sponges or cotton wads 

 are used by the assistant to bail or wipe the blood from the 

 wound as the dissection proceeds. When soiled or over- 

 filled with blood they are cast into the slop-jar and are never 

 carried back and forth from wound to pan, because if rinsed 

 in the solution it would soon be bloody, probably septic and 

 always unfit for the intended purpose. 



(d) Pan No. 4 is the instrument tray. It contains a 

 three to five per cent solution of carbolic acid and all of the 

 instruments required for the operation. A clean instninient 

 table may be used as a substitute for this pan, but the latter 

 is preferable because its contents prevent the instruments 

 from becoming too badly infected from septic tissues and 

 from the air that has not been entirely cleared of its dust. 



(e) Pan No. 5 is the needle pan. It contains a three to 

 five per cent solution of carbolic acid, as many threaded 

 needles as there will be stitches required to close the 

 wound, a needle holder, and a dissecting forcep. The use 

 of this pan prevents the sutures from being contaminated 

 during the operation, and besides if they are kept among 

 the instruments the threads readily become tangled. 



3rd. Avoid the Use of the Bare Hands as Much as 

 Possible. The fact that the veterinarian's hands are always 

 more or less infested with pyogenic microbes, together with 

 the impossibility of keeping them from coming into contact 

 with dirty objects as the operation proceeds, renders this 

 precaution specially important. 



In sewing wounds the needles are picked up with the 

 dissecting forceps and placed in the jaws of the needle- 

 holder. The lip of the wound is lifted with the forceps 

 and the needle inserted with the needle holder. This 

 manipulation eliminates the direct use of the fingers, which 

 are never safe enough to handle sutures. All of the other 



