CHOICE OF, AN ANESTHETIC. 73 



quarters in such a position that the mare cannot injure the 

 operator nor yet escape. In fact she is scarcely able to 

 move, being tightly wedged in. No ropes or other tackle are 

 affixed. As a general rule the animal is too panic-stricken to 

 kick, merely squatting down when the vaginal incision is made 

 or when the ovaries are being excised. After the operation 

 the gate (A) is opened, the patient is turned loose on the 

 prairie, and no further attention is paid to it. 



Value and Choice of an Anaesthetic— Both on humane 

 grounds and those of facility and safety to the operator some 

 general anaesthetic or deep narcotic should always be used. 

 Ovariotomy is one of the major operations of abdominal 

 surgery, and must of necessity, if no anaesthetic is used, be 

 accompanied in the mare by a good deal of shock and pain ;' 

 besides which, the violent straining which takes place when 

 the operation is performed without anaesthesia is liable to 

 cause (either at the time or afterwards) expulsion of a quantity 

 of bowel. 



It is astonishing, when chloroform is used and the operation 

 has been done under modern antiseptic precautions, how very 

 little notice the patients take of it. In a large proportion of the 

 cases summarised in the Appendix, page 89, the subsequent re- 

 port made by the veterinary surgeon in charge said : " the mare 

 feeds well and looks as if nothing had ever been done to her." 

 Anaesthetics unquestionably lessen nervous shock, and should 

 be used wherever possible in all cases in which it is necessary to 

 iniiict pain. 



If chloral is used it is generally administered per rectum. 

 Four to eight drachms of chloral, mixed with' mucilage and 

 water, are given as an enema about half-an-hour or an hour 

 before the operation is done, the rectum having been previously 

 emptied. This produces dulness and stupor, and it is in this 

 latter stage that the mare is secured with side lines or put into 

 the trevis. 



Morphia, about eight or ten grains, injected subcutaneously, 

 may be used for the same purpose. 



