20 VETERINARY SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



sary dust and loose hairs it is postponed until the field has 

 been washed. The clipping is necessary only to facilitate 

 shaving when the hair is long, thick and difficult to attack 

 with a razor. After the hair has thus been shortened with 

 the clipper a large area, which might properly be called the 

 surgical field, is shaved. The dimensions of this field should 

 exceed those actually required for the incision and sutures 

 sufficiently to prevent invasion of the hairy surroundings 

 with any part of the work and to provide a clean resting place 

 for the fingers while handling the instruments. After shaving 

 the loose hairs are flushed off. 



Third Step — Chemical Disinfection. — The first effort in 

 this direction is to submit the shaved field to a good, brisk 

 rubbing with a solution of mercuric chloride, 1-500. The so- 

 lution is poured upon the field with one hand and rubbed well 

 with the other. This washing should continue for two or 

 three minutes and end by laying a layer of cotton soaked in 

 the same solution over the field for four to five minutes 

 longer. The cotton is then removed and the field dried by 

 rubbing it briskly with pure alcohol. 



Fourth Step — Post-operative Care. — The purity of the 

 field is maintained by drying it thoroughly immediately after 

 the operation is complete, and by maintaining a state of ab- 

 solute dryness throughout the healing of the wound. When 

 secretions are permitted to saturate the field, especially if 

 covered by bandage and dressings, the microbes (which 

 would have been innocuous in a dry environment) soon mul- 

 tiply and invade the wound. Bandages enclosing a skin 

 soaked with secretions, constitute, with the warmth of the 

 body, an excellent incubator for the microbes that might 

 have otherwise remained harmless in the recesses of the skin. 



In short., the success of obtaining and maintaining a safe 

 surgical field in animal surgery depends upon: (1) ridding- 

 the field of hairs by shaving; (2) cleansing it with a strong 

 antiseptic solution; and (3) preserving a state of dryness. 



(c) Performance. — Although the iuccessful performance 

 of a surgical operation depends largely upon the proper exe- 

 cution of an aggregate of minute details, these are neverthe- 

 less subordinate to certain dominating rules whose disobedi- 

 ence may end in serious consequences or in total failure. In 

 this .connection restraint and position occupy the first rank. 

 It is not the danger of personal injury nor the danger of in^ 

 jury to the patient, but the impossibility of effectual perform- 

 ance without adequate restraint that renders this feature of 

 animal surgery so conspicuously important. The veterinarian 



