484 OBSERVATIONS ON ETHER AND CHLOROFORM. 
able philanthropy has led him on all possible occasions to be the 
warm advocate of this operation, recommends its adoption in ring- 
bone, with the reservation that the tumour has no connexion with 
the joints or ligaments in the vicinity : then, says the Professor, may 
u the periosteotomy knife be employed with safety and success*.’' 
We should fear this limitation would very much restrict its ap- 
plicability. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ACTION OF ETHER AND 
CHLOROFORM ON ANIMALS. 
By Edw. Mayhew, M.R.C.V.S., Spring -street, Paddington. 
When the use of ether as a means of producing insensibility 
during surgical operations was first announced, I presumed to state 
my opinion that to our patients the discovery would prove to be of 
no advantage. Experience seems to have justified that opinion ; 
but no one appears to have investigated the action of an agent 
that has been shewn to possess such great and peculiar power. It 
is not my intention to assert that I understand all its properties, or 
am acquainted with all the benefits which it can confer, but it is 
my desire to direct attention to some of those virtues which to me 
it seems to possess. I have used it as largely as my practice 
enabled me to employ it ; and the result has been, that day by day 
I have become more pleased with its effects, and more confident 
in the results which I expect it to induce. Over every other 
agent with which I am acquainted, it seems to be gifted with one 
particular advantage. Potent as it is in its operation, in an equal 
or even in a greater degree, it is safe. I have given it in doses 
far beyond those which are commonly administered, but in no 
instance have I had occasion to repent the bold course of treatment 
which I adopted. Tt is among the very few things in the phar- 
macy which has not often caused me to doubt, and has never given 
me reason for regret. 
When speaking thus in praise of ether, I allude to its operation 
as a Medicine when given either by the mouth, or as an enema, in 
both of which ways it has for some months been my habit to ad- 
minister it. There are, however, many records that would justify 
its being regarded in a very different light to that in which I am 
disposed to view it. Authors speak of it as a poison, but as such 
* In the discussion Firings. Setoning, Veterinarian for 1837, p. 173. 
