DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY. 
131 
the loss of so much time, or in other words “ is the slow 
method the safest.” There are of course occasional deaths from 
chloroforming domestic animals, but in the horse they should be 
few and far between, no difference what the method of administra¬ 
tion is. The horse that is subjected to operative treatment is 
in 99 io of cases in good general health ; organic diseases of the 
heart are rare ; he responds to a comparatively small amount of 
chloroform, he never has that “ narcotized condition ” of the 
nervous system caused by alcohol, morphia and other narcotics 
which in the human make chloroformization both difficult and 
dangerous, and finally the veterinary surgical operations are of 
relative short duration. With all of these advantages in our favor 
the dangers are indeed scarcely worth mentioning ; so, therefore, 
to labor over a patient 20 to 40 minutes is taking an unneces¬ 
sary precaution.—( L . A. Ml) 
“The teaching of practical surgery requires, in addition to 
the needed amount of lectures, such laboratory work as will 
best fit the student to discharge his duties as a learned member 
of his community. ... A certificate of graduation from a 
veterinary school should at the present day be logically regarded 
as including a practical knowledge of surgery, and the school 
which fails to impart it robs the student, insults modern educa¬ 
tion, and degrades veterinary science. . . . We hope that 
the near future will see a thorough awakening in the methods 
of teaching animal surgery, resulting in better technique, better 
results and very much higher attainments in the profession at 
large.”— {Prof. Williams in the March Review.) 
Commenting on the probable curative value of antistrepto¬ 
cocci serum in the March Review, Prof. Moore quotes the 
following from the report of a committee appointed by the 
American Gynaecological Society to investigate the subject : 
“ Experimental work has cast grave doubts upon the efficiency 
of antistreptococci serum in clinical work by showing that a 
serum which was obtained from a given streptococcus may pro¬ 
tect an animal from that organism, but may be absolutely in¬ 
efficient against another streptococcus and that the number of 
serums which may be prepared is limited only by the number 
and varieties of streptococci which may exist.” To this he adds : 
“ The committee found nothing in the literature or 111 their own 
experience to indicate that its employment will materially im¬ 
prove general results in the treatment of streptococcus puer- 
pural infections. If this be true in human medicine where, as 
I have already stated, there is a better knowledge of the action 
