54 
EDITORIAL. 
sional standpoint possesses an equal degree of importance in 
the cruel and butcherly manner in which the docking is in the 
majority of cases performed, or we might say perpetrated. 
That any one possessing ordinary human feelings should allow 
the tail of a handsome animal to be cut off with a hatchet, in 
entire contempt of surgical rules and indifferent as to where 
the cut (or “ hack”) is made, and without considering the risk 
of leaving a projecting portion of a vertebras protruding in 
the centre of the wound thus made, and left to itself to slough 
off after having been more or less exposed to injuries from ex¬ 
ternal violence—this seems to be almost incomprehensible. 
Waiving the first objection for the moment, and merely con¬ 
sidering the second from a surgical standpoint, it seems diffi¬ 
cult to understand why, to-day, the amputation of the tail, 
when necessary, (for there are, at times, urgent indications 
for its performance) should not be performed secundum artem , 
by a careful and experienced hand, with all the benefits to be 
obtained from the use of local anasthassia and by a proper 
operation at the point of the vertebras, with ligation of the 
caudal arteries. This, with the simple dressing of the wound 
would place the case under conditions which would certainly 
obviate some of the most important of the objections now 
urged against the operation itself. 
We are glad to learn that already in Massachusetts some 
offenders in this matter have received justice at the hands of 
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and 
have had severe punishment meted to them for having docked 
the tails of a number of horses. The same thing has also re¬ 
cently taken place in New York city, and a decision rendered 
by the courts by which the operation of docking has become 
illegal. 
We are pleased to remark, however, that amongst the per¬ 
sons who have subjected themselves to punishment in those 
last cases, we have failed to find the name of a single regular 
veterinarian, and we doubt if, to-day, any regular graduate in 
the State would perform the operation, except as we believe 
it ought to be done, under pathological conditions and for re¬ 
medial reasons, and with the various steps above specified. 
