DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY. 
891 
SURGICAL ITEMS. 
The veterinarian who arrives at the right diagnosis by 
means of his professional knowledge will have success with his 
therapy where the incompetent fails, and he will never under¬ 
take to cure hopeless conditions. 
A veterinarian should possess a healthy, well-trained mind, 
and to a certain degree a strong body, well-trained senses, be a 
master of knowledge and skill, and have a soul free from self- 
conceit and prejudice. The one who shrinks to take his coat 
off when necessary or who is afraid to make himself useful be¬ 
cause he will have to wash his hands afterwards, or who tries to 
practice surgery with long finger nails and gold rings on his 
fingers, will never satisfy himself nor anyone else. 
The attainment (Geschick) that enables one to execute the 
tender, caressing examinations on a spoiled pet dog, cat or bird 
of a fashionable lady; to succeed over a vicious horse or an un¬ 
couth bull ; to behave properly in a low, dirty pig pen or 
chicken coop ; to examine in the presence of an overbearing, 
self-conceited, all-knowing horse-owner, trainer or farmer, in 
the simplest, safest and usual manner, and still not only pre¬ 
serve but elevate his personal and professional reputation, is no 
more an inborn principle than the “practical eye,” but is ac¬ 
quired only by practice. —Translated for the Department of 
Surgery from Hoffmann''s Veterinary Surgery , by Win. Schu¬ 
macher , Vet. Student. 
The operations which the veterinarian should test and re¬ 
port for the purpose of determining their true worth are : 
Cunean tenotomy, for spavin lameness, peroneal tenotomy for 
string-halt, arytenoideraphy, trephining the cranium for gid in 
sheep, oophorectomy for tails witching, neurectomy of the 
superior branch of the trigemini for twitching of the head, my¬ 
otomy for tick, neurectomy of the cervical sympathetic chains 
for epilepsy, removal of the external alveolar plate for extract¬ 
ing molar teeth (Williams), dentistry for side-reining in driving 
horses, adjustment of artificial rings in tracheal stenosis. 
Wanted also, methods of curing alveolar nasal fistulse ; methods 
of preventing tracheal stenosis after tracheotomy ; methods of 
curing string-halt, weaving, cribbing, salivary (Steno) fistulse, 
forging from conformation, periodic ophthalmia ; methods of ap¬ 
plying strictly occlusive dressing to wounds where fabric band¬ 
ages cannot be adjusted and retained ; conservative indications 
and contraindications for the various neurectomy operations ; 
satisfactory methods of castrating adult sheep and goats ; and 
