MY FIRST CAESARIAN SECTION IN THE COW. 
611 
uterus brought from beneath the intestinal mass, which was 
held back in the abdominal cavity by my untrained assistant. 
A twelve inch incision into it enabled me readily to extricate 
a nice, large, red heifer calf, which showed its appreciation 
of liberty by repeated kicks and efforts to stand up. 
The secundines were then removed, but not before the 
placenta was severed from each maternal cotyledon by care¬ 
ful manipulations. The wound in the uterus was diligently 
cleansed and stitched up with fine surgeon’s silk—my spools 
of carbolized catgut being at the hospital and time was too 
urgent to wait till they could be brought. The womb was 
then replaced beneath the other viscera, a few blood clots 
removed from the abdominal cavity and the latter sponged 
out. Inserting strong sutures into the edges, of the great, 
gaping, outside wound and dressing it completed the opera¬ 
tion ; most of the work having been done by the light of one 
dim, flickering lantern. 
Many times have I wondered why our cousins, the M.Ds, 
do not have even a greater percent, of their patients in major 
surgery recover, for most of the cutting is done in a strictly 
aseptic room, on a subject carefully prepared by diet, and 
rendered immobile by complete anaesthesia and one which 
I would readily heal by first intention. The minute alter- 
attention by trained nurses is also in strong contrast to the 
gross neglect to which our dumb friends are often subjected. 
The next thing in order, to resume my former topic—the 
cow in question—was the introduction of two sutures through 
the labia vulval. This having been done, and another dose 
of laudanum having been administered, I left her for the night. 
At my call the next morning she was up, was much 
brighter in appearance, and had drank about sixteen quarts 
of gruel made of warm water, shipstuff and oil-meal. Her 
temperature was ioo degrees and pulse 90 per minute. The 
further treatment consisted in the use of stimulants, tonics 
and antiphlogistic agents with solutions of carbolic acid three 
per-cent, or of mercury perchloriae, one part to 1,000, as a de¬ 
tergent to the local injury. At no time did the fevei exceed 
three and a half degrees, though for a few days partial ano- 
