624 
MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
his right hand, he must push it up the nostril that points most 
directly for the place that is soft, where the disease is seated; 
and if he feels the point of the wire below his thumb, he may 
rest assured that the bag is perforated; and that, if the brain 
does not inflame, the creature will grow better. The bladder 
being thus pierced on the lower side, the liquid continues to drip 
through the hole as long as any remains, and even as fast as it 
gathers, so that, the perforation does not get leave to grow up or 
close again until the animal is quite better.” 
Danger of this Operation .—I have, however, considerable ob¬ 
jection to this operation, which has had a fair trial in various 
parts of the kingdom, and in Scotland particularly; and although 
it is still practised by some, is far from being so successful as it 
was in the hands of Mr. Hogg. Considerable mischief is done 
in the passage up the nose; for the sense of smell in the sheep 
being very acute, the turbinated and sethmoidal bones are greatly 
developed, and fill the nostril almost to choking, in order to give 
greater surface for the pulpy- ramifications of the olfactory nerve 
to be spread upon. Both of the turbinated bones, and the nasal 
portion of the sethmoid bone, must be perforated. The style 
must next pass through the cribriform plate of the aethmoid 
bone ; and, from the sudden depression of the parietal bone, and 
the dip of the cranium downward, the situation of this plate is 
somewhat changed, and does not present itself, as in the horse 
or the ox, at the termination of the nasal cavity, and therefore 
it is not a little difficult to hit. Although I have performed the 
operation many times on the dead subject, and more than once 
on the living one, this perforation of the cribriform plate was not 
so easy a matter with me as it seems to have been with Mr. Hogg. 
The Danger of Wiring .—Then, although from this downward 
direction of the cranium there is little danger of wounding the 
base of the brain, or the origin of any of the nerves, yet I can 
see a great deal of danger in the perforation of the medullary 
substance. It is true that the animal feels it not at the time; 
but the brain is too lavishly supplied with bloodvessels not to 
render the almost immediate accession of inflammation a matter 
of apprehension. Mr. Hogg candidly owns that such as die in 
consequence of wiring are “in the greatest agonies, and often 
groan most piteously.” On dissection the brain appears inflamed, 
and the course of the wire is easily traced : it appears as if a 
common wheel spindle had passed through it. He also acknow¬ 
ledges that, in a few instances, he has seen the sheep fall down 
like a creature felled, and expire in the space of two minutes. 
In addition to all this, there are sometimes two or three of these 
hydatids in the same brain, and differently situated, so that the 
