G18 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
same end. I may be permitted here to direct your attention 
to the sandal invented by Mr. Percivall. Doubtless an ad- 
mirable contrivance in place of a lost shoe in the hunting- 
field or elsewhere, but of equal, or even greater, value as a 
protector to the foot in the hospital ; obviating the necessity 
of frequently taking off and nailing on the shoe, which, how- 
ever carefully done, cannot fail to inflict pain. 
Skin affections are also better understood than they were, 
and all are not jumbled together, as once was the case, under 
two common appellations 6 mange and surfeit/ to the disgrace 
of veterinary nosology. 
Again, we lessen the pain attendant on surgical operations 
by the inhalation of anaesthetic agents, such as ether and chlo- 
form. And this allows me to place before you the simplest 
apparatus I have seen for causing partial insensibility 
in the lower animals, if any be really needed. It was 
invented by Mr. R. Bowles, Y.S., of Abergavenny, 
who informs me that in practice he has found it very 
efficient. 
Other substances besides those I have named have been 
advocated as hypnotics, but some are of doubtful efficacy, 
and others inadmissable for the animals that come under the 
professional notice of the veterinary surgeon. 
Our surgical operations, too, are more successfully performed 
arising from a knowledge of anatomy. The brutal practice 
of “ punching” for spavins with an instrument of iron, having 
many points, made red hot, and a powerful caustic sub- 
sequently applied, is now justly reprobated. I remember a 
practitioner, who entered on his studies here when “ in the 
sere and yellow leaf,” the autumn of his life, state, that in 
cases of contraction of the perforans and perforatus tendons, 
arising from lesions, he made short work of it, for he 
inserted his knife underneath close to the bone, and cut right 
through ! On being shown the blood-vessels and other parts 
he divided, he confessed he should be afraid to do it again. 
I am told that it was a practice in Norfolk, when an inver- 
sion of the uterus had taken place, and the cow-leech had 
returned it, for him to pass through the labia pudendi a strip 
of thin leather, and twisting its ends together, confine them 
by making an incision inside the thigh, and tying them there. 
Others have been known to bring them over the tail, and 
drive a nail through them . 
So with our surgical instruments. Compare those now 
used with the rude and torturing tools depicted in the old 
w T orks on farriery, and then say if an improvement has bee 
made or not. 
