THE USE OF ANAESTHETICS IN VETERINARY PRACTICE. 755 
would not only enjoy the benefits to be derived from the gen¬ 
eral use of anaesthetics in their operations, but would com¬ 
mand greater respect and admiration from their patrons, the 
majority of whom are opposed to witness the extreme suffer¬ 
ing of their animals when operated on in a conscious condition. 
As to the comparative value of the different anesthetics 
in veterinary practice there is a difference of opinion, but it is 
generally conceded that chloroform is the best agent for all 
the lower animals, the dog, perhaps, excepted. Whatever 
drug is used, it should be pure. 
Dr. Archie Stockwell, in an excellent article published in 
Vol. XIV of the American Veterinary Review, states 
that neither clinical experience nor experimental research has 
been able to positively demonstrate the exact conditions, in 
either man or animals, to which any one anaesthetic is specially 
applicable, or even under which it can be most advanta¬ 
geously employed, for the information extant is almost wholly 
made up of negations. 
Each individual patient requires individual study, since 
what may be “meat” for one may prove “poison” for another, 
and the final selection, if judiciously made, will be based 
solely upon the physiology and pathology of the disease; the 
physiological manifestations prone to follow the use of the 
anaesthetic, and racial and individual idiosyncrasies. 
The same author, in a second article on this subject, pub¬ 
lished in Vol. XV of the American Veterinary Review, 
states that chloroform should be preferred to ether in aged 
creatures, who, as a rule, bear chloroform better, especially 
as ether may induce pulmonary troubles. In operations 
about the mouth or respiratory organs, where the actual cau¬ 
tery is to be used, ether is inhibited, because of its inflamma¬ 
bility. 
In cases of lung infection and where absolute muscular 
relaxation is demanded, as for the diagnosis of tumors, the 
reduction of luxations, etc., chloroform is vastly the superior 
of ether. 
In certain abdominal operations, such as herniotomy; and 
in cases where venous engorgement is a decided advantage, 
