EFFECTS OF THE INHALATION OF ./ETHER ON ANIMALS. 149 
vided, and nearly an inch excised, without the animal betraying 
the slightest symptom of pain. Had he been operated upon in the 
usual way, he, no doubt, would have felt great agony, and offered 
great resistance, for in no operation have operators so much resist- 
ance to contend with, in consequence of the pain, as when the 
nerve is divided, as in this operation. The actual cautery was now 
applied to the other leg, as in the operation of firing, and its effect 
seemed to occasion not the slightest torture. The animal, for 
neither operation, was in any way confined, except his head held, 
but lay almost motionless on the ground. As he became reani- 
mated, he turned his head up and appeared quite unconscious, or 
rather as if he had been asleep. His pulse, during the operation, 
slightly increased, but afterwards rapidly rose to ©4 in the minute. 
The operations were considered quite conclusive, and perfectly 
satisfactory to the medical gentlemen present. 
So far as horses, however, are concerned, it would appear from 
the annexed short paragraph taken from the John Bull, thatsether- 
ization is likely to serve other purposes than that of preparing 
horses for bearing pain. 
“ On Thursday, sether vapour was applied to a vicious horse, 
the property of Mr. G. Hughes, of Godstone, whilst it was shod, 
an operation which it had been found impossible to perform 
otherwise.” 
In India, where the horses from being all uncastrated are pro- 
verbially vicious and restive, and unquiet to be shod, or to have 
any thing done to them, a sort of grass called “ bang,” the natives 
gather, is given to the horses, who greedily eat it, and from its 
narcotic effects speedily become intoxicated, and in that state, 
which lasts about an hour or so, tijrn so tame, and indifferent as to 
what liberties are taken with them, that shoeing and all other 
operations are thereby rendered comparatively safe and facile of 
performance. In the instance above cited, a full dose of the aethe- 
real vapour was administered. In future experiments it might- be 
as well to ascertain what effect half doses, — doses that produce only 
a sort of stupefaction, not complete torpidness, — would have in 
such cases. 
In concluding this running account of transactions we hear and 
read of on the subject of setherization, we can only give it as our 
opinion, that we seem as yet to have a good deal to learn about its 
operation and administration. Certainly, it bids fair to prove an 
inestimable jewel, as a charm against pain, to us human beings, 
and, so far as it has yet been tried, has turned out equally prophy- 
lactic of suffering to the brute. Still, failures and unlooked-for 
results have presented themselves, against which it must be our 
study to guard in all future experiments. 
Ed. Vet. 
