420 
H. A. SPENCER. 
GASTR0-HYSTER0T0MY. 
By Dk. H. A. Spenokk, San Jose, Cal. 
(A paper read before the California Veterinary Medical Association). 
It is always gratifying to a practitioner to have something 
a little out of the ordinary to relate; more especially is this 
true if in his efforts to do something for the suffering animal 
creation he has the good fortune to be successful, as your 
humble servant was recently in the performance of the oper¬ 
ation of gastro-hysterotomy on a bitch. I have long enter¬ 
tained the opinion that the veterinary, like the medical pro¬ 
fession, were deterred from the performance of what is known 
as capital operations. Not so much from lack of confidence 
in their own skill, but from fear of the thoughtless arraign¬ 
ment by a class of people who infest every community, and 
with pseudo wisdom dilate on the enormities of what they 
are pleased to term the butchery of a surgeon, who has brains 
enough to determine on a course of procedure and courage 
sufficient to put into practice what the dictates of his convic¬ 
tions tell him is right; and l am satisfied that many citizens 
are cut ofkannually from lives of usefulness when by intelli¬ 
gent surgical interference they might have been spared to 
their families and friends were it not for fear of the insatiate, 
nonsensical tongue-waggle of this gossiping element of soci¬ 
ety, who are never so happy as when engaged in impugning 
the motives or belittling the services of those who are unfor¬ 
tunate enough to attract their attention. While it would 
seem that these observations relate to the tribulations of the 
human physician, we find that the veterinarian also comes in 
for no small amount of abuse; in fact l am of the opinion he 
receives the most, for there are certain social distinctions be¬ 
tween the two professions that are sufficiently awe-inspiring 
to this class of people to make them cautious in spreading 
their slanders against the medical man. In the practice of 
our profession we find that though it is often necessary that 
the patient be prepared, or put in the best possible condition 
to withstand the shock of an operation, he is not the only one 
