INTRODUCTION. 



Under the designation of operative surgery is imderstood that 

 department of medical science and practice which includes the 

 external and instrumental manipulations reqtiired in the treat- 

 ment of surgical diseases and accidental injuries or deformities; 

 or perhaps it might be succinctly defined as surgical science me- 

 chanically applied. 



The two branches — the science and the art — which constitute 

 the study of operative surgery cannot, of course, be dissociated 

 in a treatise on the general subject, and it will therefore be neces- 

 sary, as we proceed with the detail of our observations, to give 

 due consideration to the aetiology, the symptomatology, the pathol- 

 ogy and other characteristic features of certain diseases, in their 

 relations to the indications of treatment and the manipulations 

 which they involve at the hands of the surgeon. 



Viewed from the standpoint of comparative importance in re- 

 spect to the value of the results of human and veterinary surgery, 

 as relating to the vital status of the patients who become respect- 

 ively the subjects of both— the human being and the quadruped 

 races — veterinary surgery must of course consent to occupy the 

 subordinate place; a fact, however, by no means tending to dis- 

 parage the value or the just estimation of the calling of the scien- 

 tific veterinarian. 



In human surgery the one paramount result held up to view 

 is the prolongation of the life of the patient. This is a consum- 

 mation to be achieved regardless of any considerations of cost or 

 trouble, while in veterinary surgery the prime motive is the res- 

 toration of the patient's interrupted ability to fulfil his function 

 as an animated machine for supplying a certain amount of valu- 

 able force. For these reasons the scope of veterinary practice is 



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