THE USE OF ANAESTHETICS IN VETERINARY PRACTICE. 759 
operated on him, doing the covered operation, using a liga¬ 
ture instead of a clamp. He still breathed, and I had no 
thoughts of him dying, but when I had nearly finished wash¬ 
ing, etc., I saw he was dying, and I could not prevent it, not¬ 
withstanding my efforts. The second case was a rather small 
pig with a diseased scrotum, following castration, complicated 
by a bad hernia, the whole mass being as large as-my head ; 
consequently the operation was prolonged and my assistant 
renewed the chloroform several times. When we had finished 
the operation the respirations were shallow, and the pig lived 
only a few minutes. 
In Case I, the hog inhaled but little chloroform, in fact, 
much less than it usually requires to produce anaesthesia suit¬ 
able for such an operation, and as he breathed for ten or fif¬ 
teen minutes after the chloroform had been removed from his 
nose, 1 can scarcely account for his death. He may have 
been injured in his struggles while being brought to the place 
of operation, or his death may have been due to a too sudden 
iinhalation of chloroform. 
In Case II, the pig was not very strong, and the operation 
occupied some time, thus requiring a great deal of chloroform ; 
and as its administration had to be left largely to the men 
who were assisting in the work, it is quite probable that the 
pig received too much of it, which caused its death. If due 
care be taken hogs can be chloroformed with but little risk. 
Young pigs take but very little of the drug before they be¬ 
come unconscious. 
I have heard it stated that horses are less susceptible to 
the effects of choloroform than all other domestic animals, 
but my experience does not corroborate this, as I have found 
that cattle offer a greater resistance and are anaesthetized 
with greater difficulty. In painful operations on horses and 
cattle I nearly always use an anaesthetic if the nature and seat 
of operation will permit. If the desired effects can be attained 
by producing local anaesthesia I use cocaine, which in my 
opinion is a very valuable addition to our materia medica. 
It is surprising the number of operations that the use of this 
agent renders painless, which otherwise would be very 
