REMARKS ON ETHERIZATION. 
291 
into a trance or state of sweet unconsciousness while the torture 
of cutting and maiming is going on upon his naked flesh, why 
cannot his old and faithful and favoured servant, his horse or his 
dog, be cast into the same senseless condition while any painful 
operation it may have to undergo is being performed 1 These are 
questions veterinary surgeons, both in public and private practice, 
will find themselves called on — already have, indeed, found them- 
selves called on — to answer ; and therefore it behoves them, one 
and all, to lose no time in bestirring themselves to ascertain what 
may or may not be done, so far as their patients are concerned, by 
the sethereal stifler of pain and sensibility. 
Did etherization work suddenly on the nervous system, without 
any premonitory unpleasant feeling, annoyance, or irritation; were 
the animals exposed to its influence at once transported from a 
state of consciousness to one of insensibility, so that in his trans- 
position he lay motionless and senseless of what was doing to him, 
of course there could be no difficulty about the matter. But, we 
would ask, is this the case 1 What answer does Professor Sewell 
make 1 Why, that nothing beyond “ a common soap-dish filled 
with aether and held to the animal’s nose” is required ; adding, 
that the odour is “ so delightful ” that the vapour “ is readily in- 
haled,” and that, “ when sufficiently affected, the animal lies 
quietly down, and submits, resistlessly, to whatever is requisite 
to be done.” The artist in his studio could hardly from his ima- 
gination have painted a picture more pleasing to the mind than 
this ; and we shrewdly suspect our agreeable Professor was seated 
in that pleasant little back-room of his which looks out into the 
garden when he drew up for the Royal Agricultural Society his 
enchanting description of the effects of aether. 
More practical inquirers into the operation of etherization in 
horses have found that, soon after inhalation has commenced, 
seemingly from annoyance or irritation or both, the animal has 
been seized with sundry expressions of disquietude, which, in 
most cases, have increased to acts of violence, in some to a state 
bordering on delirium, in the course of which he has so thrown 
about in such a manner as to put himself, and everybody about 
him, into imminent danger, disarranging in the course of his plunges 
the apparatus probably, and thus defeating the object in view. It 
