REPORTS OF CASES. 
Ill 
REPORTS OF GASES. 
A FEW DISAPPOINTMENTS WITH ANAESTHETICS. 
By W. E. Smith, D.V.S., Sedalia, Mo. 
In presenting this article I do it with less pride than if I had 
made a grand discovery for the benefit of science, but from a 
standpoint of duty. I am prompted to take this step, hoping 
my experience will be of some benefit to someone like myself, 
who wishes to know more of the reverses of others. Mistakes 
and disappointments in many cases are blessings to practi¬ 
tioners. We are apt to tell of our good fortune and let that 
remain untold which has a tendency to reflect on our success. 
As we fulfill our requirements at college and settle down in 
private practice we are, figuratively speaking, alone in the 
world. When we are called on to perform an operation, we must 
take hold and secure our patient by leading in the danger we 
are subjected to, as our clients know nothing about our appli¬ 
ances. 
We move on, hoping for something better in using our anti¬ 
septic agents. It is done in a very crude manner, on account 
of operating in or out of doors, according to circumstances. We 
have some large stock farms to practice on, where there is no 
barn nor shed. The stock is cornered against a barb-wire fence 
and caught with ropes. You perform your operation and turn 
them loose, and your success depends on the good recovery in 
such cases and with such treatment. Then we hope when we 
give a dose of medicine to come somewhere near telling how it 
will operate, but this sometimes disappoints us also •; and when 
we use anaesthetics we hope for a specific action, and here we 
are apt to suffer defeat again. 
Now I wish to describe briefly a few disappointments I have 
met with in the use of cocaine. The first I shall describe was a 
saddle-bred stallion, about fifteen hands high, weight about 
ioco pounds (a pacer) ; he made a race record of 2.17 and a 
