CHAPTEE I. 

 MEANS OF RESTRAINT. 



The final preliminary before operating upon animals, is to place 

 the patient in such a condition of restraint as wUl assure the entire 

 safety of the surgeon and his assistants from injury likely to result 

 from the violent struggles of the terrified and suffering creature. 

 The severity or the duration of the operation furnishes no accurate 

 measure of the necessity of the restraint, or of its continuance or 

 degree. Any unusual or violent aggressive treatment will excite 

 his fears, and consequently his opposition, and v^hether the occa- 

 sion be a painful and protracted dissection, or the simple apphca- 

 tion of a dressing, the surgeon may usually rely on the strenuous 

 resistance of the patient. It is of httle accoimt that there are 

 difi'erences of dispositions in horses, as in men. With any un- 

 reasoning animal the case is the same, and with the excitement, 

 the anxiety, and no doubt, a vague terror of somethiag unknown 

 impending, too often quite explainable by the treatment to which 

 he has been long accustomed at the hands of an unfeeling owner, 

 he is prompted by the mere instinct of self-preservation to defend 

 himself with such means as nature has taught him to use. The 

 necessity of enforcing a passive condition in the animal being thus 

 apparent, it ought not to be necessary to say that the means of 

 accompUshing it should be employed with reserve and moderation, 

 especially when they are painful in themselves, and that no man 

 claiming to be the possessor of humane instincts will permit 

 himself to increase the severity of their appUcation by supplement- 

 ary ill treatment, in the infliction of "punishment," upon the 

 alarmed and suffering brute, a course which is quite likely, more- 

 over, to be as Ul judged as it is otherwise reprehensible, from the 

 fact that in most instances its effect is contrary to its intention, m 

 aggravating the evil it would remedy. It should never be forgotten 

 how easUy the most fractious and timid animal may sometunes be 

 controlled by kindness and patience, and his agitation soothed by 



