ON THE11AFEUTICS, 
255 
no apprehension need be entertained if the patient can be 
brought completely under narcotic influence, although during 
the extraordinary systemic excitement associated with pain 
this is not at all times easy to effect; nor have we found large 
doses to be more powerful for the purpose than small ones ; 
on the contrary, smaller quantities seem to excite less dis¬ 
turbance, and produce the desired effect more certainly. The 
full development of narcotic action will seldom be necessary 
in veterinary practice, as it is not required that we should 
combat the distress which in man results from the absence of 
sleep; so far as the benumbing action is concerned, we may 
safely proceed, even to the production of insensibility, but 
the peculiar effect upon the sensorium, so characteristic of 
narcotic influence in the human subject, only occurs to a very 
slight extent in the lower animals. 
The drugs which are most active in occasioning the 
numbness or stupefaction, are chloroform and tobacco, par¬ 
ticularly the latter, whose action we have noticed to be most 
marked in the form of tobacco-smoke enema ; none of the 
other agents have seemed to us to produce a condition so 
resembling full narcotic action in man—a certain drow¬ 
siness and insensibility invariably follows its use, without any 
marked preliminary excitement. Opium in two-drachm 
doses, given by the mouth or as an enema, is very useful in 
allaying pain, but several doses are required before its action 
is apparent, w 7 hile the effects of tobacco smoke are almost in¬ 
stantaneous. Chloroform in quantities of half an ounce 
mixed with a little olive oil and injected into the rectum, we 
have found to induce a sleepy state, which could be in¬ 
definitely prolonged by occasional repetitions of the agent 
after the action is fairly apparent, which will be probably 
after about three or four doses have been given at intervals 
of an hour or less. We have succeeded in placing puppies 
suffering from colic, under the influence of chloroform, by 
allowing them to inhale a few T drops upon a small piece of 
sponge, but in our experiments upon the horse under ex¬ 
citement of any kind, we have never been able to advance 
beyond the preliminary stage of stimulation when we have 
given the agent in the form of vapour. As an enema, how¬ 
ever, the drug may be used without fear of any such action 
occurring. 
Locally, the anodyne effects of narcotic agents render them 
of great efficacy in cases of irritation of the skin or mucous 
membrane; infusions of opium or digitalis, used warm or 
cold according to circumstances, liniment of belladonna, 
chloroform and olive oil to form a liniment, and the vapour 
