ANESTHETICS 



343 



II.— Anesthetics Used for Animals. 



In almost every case, the anaesthetic used is 

 chloroform or ether, sometimes combined with or 

 followed by morphia or chloral. The nature of 

 the anaesthetic used in each case must, of course, be 

 stated in the returns sent to the Home Office. 

 Of the use of ether, it need only be said that 

 animals take it well, and that there is no difficulty 

 in rendering them unconscious with it. 



With some animals chloroform is equally good ; 

 with others it is dangerous to life. But Professor 

 Hobday, of the Royal Veterinary College, has 

 published an account of five hundred administra- 

 tions of chloroform to dogs, for the operations of 

 veterinary surgery, with only one death. {Lancet, 

 September 1898.) Still, for dogs and cats, ether 

 is used in preference to chloroform. Other animals 

 take chloroform well. # And it is wholly false to 

 say that "just a whiff" of chloroform or ether is 



* The Veterinary Record (1899) published an excellent 

 paper by Mr Tasker on the best method of administering 

 chloroform to horses ; and the Lancet, 18th February 1899, 

 says, in a review of it, " We fear that much unnecessary suffering 

 to animals has in the past been allowed through the dread of 

 incurring the supposed risk of giving chloroform to valuable 

 horses, dogs, etc. As has been pointed out by Mr Hobday 

 and others, the lower animals can be most successfully given 

 chloroform if they are properly dealt with, if a rational method 

 is adopted, and if the management of the anaesthetic is com- 

 mitted to a trained person, and not entrusted to a stable 

 helper or a rustic, who is as incapable of giving chloroform to 

 a horse as to a human being." 



