590 USE OF ANJESTHETIC AGENTS IN ANCIENT CHINA. 
good handling: it is sufficient to say, therefore, that no small 
animal is fit to be used at all as a sire whose handling is not 
good, and that the more perfect his shape is the better . — The 
Farmer s Herald , Sept . 1851. 
HORSE SURGERY. 
In Acre there is a plentiful supply of Turkish veterinary sur- 
geons, and about the most curious sight I ever witnessed was a 
horse under treatment by these practitioners. First, they threw 
it on the ground by tying its fore feet or hoofs so closely together, 
that it became as helpless as an infant. Then, a tight bandage 
was placed over the nose and mouth, leaving only sufficient 
space for the animal to breathe. A Turkish pipe containing 
tobacco, bang, hashbish, cuscout, and other narcotics, was in- 
serted into one of the nostrils, and, a spark being placed upon 
the bowl, the horse involuntarily inhaled the stupifying smoke, 
which had the effect, after a very short period, of rendering it 
unconscious of what was going on. Then the skill of veterinary 
surgery was brought into play, and, the fetlock of the poor brute 
being laid open, a perfect hive of worms deposited by a fl v, 
common in some parts of the desart between Damascus and 
Bagdad, was duly extracted. The wound was closed up with 
pitch sticking-plaster, and, the bands being unloosed, buckets of 
cold water were thrown over the horse, which quickly revived. 
The foot was placed in a sling , and a few days afterwards, so 
effective had been the operation, the horse was fit to pursue his 
daily avocations . — Neales Syria. 
*** The “ hive of worms ' ’ consisted probably of a nest of the 
larvce of the oestrus cuticolens equi. What is meant by the 
foot being “ placed in a sling” is not so intelligible. — E d. Yet. 
USE OF ANAESTHETIC AGENTS IN ANCIENT CHINA. 
STANISLAS Julian has found, in examining the Chinese 
books in the National Library of Paris, the proof that the Chi- 
nese have been long acquainted with the use of anaesthetic agents 
during surgical operations. The extract which he gives is from 
a book published about the commencement of the sixteenth 
century, in fifty vols. quarto, and entitled “ Cow-Kin-i-tong,” 
“ General Account of Ancient and Modern Medicine and 
