DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY. 
487 
very aggravated ; 4 weeks passed before the animal regained 
full control over the paretic leg. Pruritus. —To judge by the 
action of the animal there seems to be an agonizing itching 
right below the fetlock on the internal aspect of the operated 
leg. The creature persistently gnaws the parts until a large 
raw surface is created, which by no means causes him to discon¬ 
tinue his gnawing. When means of restraint are employed to 
prevent the chewing he will paw more or less with the operated 
leg. The writer has observed three such cases. The itching 
in these three instances set in about three to four weeks after 
the operation and persisted for about one week to ten days, at 
the end of which time no further trouble was experienced.— 
( W . E. A . Wyman , Milwaukee , Wis.) 
“ The Technique of Bloodless Work". —In the August number 
of the New York State Journal of Medicine we find an article 
with the above title, by Robert H. M. Dawburn, M. D., which 
begins by stating that : “The older the surgeon, the greater be¬ 
comes his respect for a drop of blood. All cutting operations on 
the extremities should be bloodless ones, and all elsewhere as 
near as possible. Every drop of blood saved is a safeguard 
against shock ; and bloodless work permits the same speed and 
facility of dissection that one could employ on the dead body.” 
To all that is mentioned in the above text, we may add that 
the presence of blood in an incision acts as foreign material and 
prevents union by first intention ; this is one of the reasons why 
surgical wounds of large domestic animals do not heal as readily 
as those of small ones or even man. 
No veterinary surgeon has yet been able to make the re¬ 
moval of shoe-boils or large tumors, a bloodless operation ; in 
fact, besides the neurectomies and tendonotomies of the extrem¬ 
ities, we have but a few bloodless operations in the surgery of 
the horse. Exsanguination of the extremities by the use of the 
Esmarch bandage has given very good satisfaction, but where 
it cannot be applied, we have no method of arresting capillary 
haemorrhage, which is much greater in the horse than in the 
human patient. Arterial haemorrhage can be controlled by 
ligation or torsion ; but the capillary oozing from the walls of 
the incision cannot be arrested but by the actual cautery or 
strong astringents that will destroy the tissues and encourage 
sloughing, which impedes granulations or union of parts. What 
is most needed in surgical operations that require deep incisions, 
is some haemostatic that will cause local anaemia without injury 
to the tissues. We believe that this will be accomplished be- 
