THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXX, 
No. 354. 
JUNE, 1857. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 30. 
Communications and Cases. 
ON ANAESTHETIC AGENTS. 
Physic has its fashions. That system or therapeutic 
most in vogue to-day, to-morrow, perhaps, may be thrown 
into desuetude, and at length become even contemned. 
When it was first proposed to induce a state of anaesthesia 
before surgical operations were performed, many objections 
were raised against it. Some of these were grounded on the 
unnatural condition induced in the blood and its vessels ; 
others, on the consequences that followed the use of the 
agents resorted to; while the expert surgeon could see no 
necessity for them at all, the pain inflicted being but slight 
in his estimation, and the results always more favorable when 
they were not employed than when they were. He, however, 
was the operator , and not the operated . Few persons court 
the surgeon’s knife, and those who have once been under it 
dread a necessity for its repetition. The public mind, albeit, 
was quickly impressed with the conviction that immunity 
from pain, when any operation whatever is being performed, 
was in every sense desirable, and catching at the relief from 
suffering which could be so easily obtained, they hesitated 
not to run the risk of all consequences, and the employment 
of hypnotic or anaesthetic agents became very general. 
Nor were they long confined to the human subject ; for as 
“a merciful man is merciful to his beast,” so they soon 
became extended to the lower animals, and the veterinary 
surgeon is now very often called upon to employ them. It 
is true that with his patients the reason to be assigned for 
their use is not so strong as that which obtains with the 
human practitioner, since, not possessing prescience, they 
cannot be apprehensive of what perhaps may take place, 
or have any fears about that of which they are altogether 
unconscious. 
XXX. 
41 
