OF COMPARATIVE MEDICINE AND VETERINARY ARCHIVES. EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY RUSH SHIPPEN HUIDEKOPER, Veterinarian (Alfort), H. D. GILL, V.S. VOLUME XXI. OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: 3452 LUDLOW STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1900. LONDON; Bailliére, Tindall & Co. ILLUSTRATIONS. Carpipes Unilateralis Congenitalis et Luxatio Capiti Radii (Con genitalis). Dawson, French Canine Hopples . Kenney, Richard R., United States Senator from Delaware. Pneumonomycosis. Urinary Analysis PAGE 458, 459, 462, 463 610 ROUTINE MANIPULATIONS AND OPERATIONS FROM THE STAND-POINT OF ASEPSIS AND ANTISEPSIS.1 BY WM. HERBERT LOWE, D.V.S., PATERSON, N. J. FORMERLY UNITED STATES VETERINARY OFFICER OF THE PORT OF NEW YORK, IT is certainly a very nice thing to treat a rare disease or to perform some unusual operation, but the success of the average veterinary practitioner depends far more, in my opinion, upon the personal adaptability, the power of observation, introspection, the methods, modus operandi, experience, judgment, and dexterity exercised in the routine manipulations and operations of his practice than in the occasional performance of some rare and unusual operation. Too much importance cannot be laid upon intelligent and thorough attention to method and detail in our everyday practice. The principles underlying all surgical procedures are the same, whether the case be the treatment of an ordinary wound or the performance of one of the more difficult and delicate operations known to veterinary science. Some people are always waiting for an opportunity to do some wonderful thing, and let thousands of little matters go by that, taken advantage of, would have been productive of surprising results. Success comes to the great majority of people by being able and doing ordinary and common things well. The same is true of the surgeon. Compare the number of times you make an examination or dress an ordinary sore or wound to the number of times you are called upon to perform one of the major surgical operations, and you will, I think, agree with me that the routine 1 Read at the Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association, September, 1899. manipulations and operations are worthy of our consideration at this time and in this place. More attention should be given in our veterinary schools to the training of students in the art as well as the science, and we would not see graduates of the best schools, who are well educated, not able to diagnose and to put into practice what they have been taught, and making mistakes that are evident to laymen, to say nothing of good horsemen. In the first place, a man should not study veterinary medicine unless he is naturally adapted to the profession. I sometimes see practitioners who, I think to myself, ought to be behind the counter selling calico instead of practising veterinary medicine. The fact is that a man, in order to make a good veterinarian, should understand the habits, functions, nature, and disposition of different animals, how to go around them, to handle, restrain, and control them. He should be a judge of a horse, and a good horseman in the higher sense of the term. If he has not the natural adaptability and these acquirements he cannot be considered a qualified veterinarian. I do not care how much scientific and other knowledge he may have, or from what college or university he may have graduated, he is out of his element, and cannot successfully cope with the man with natural intuition and characteristics, other things being equal. There are many difficulties that are constantly confronting the veterinary practitioner that are not met with in the practice of human medicine. Our patients cannot tell us, in articulate language, anything. This fact is often referred to by laymen as well as by professional men. They tell us a good deal, however, if we are sufficiently observant and experienced to understand their language. Every attitude, every position of head, body, and limb, and every movement has a significance, and tells to the trained veterinarian the nature and condition of his patient with just as much certainty, yes, often more certainty and accuracy, than the human being tells his physician of his symptoms and ailments. Another difficulty is that the commercial value of each patient is, as a rule, taken into consideration in determining whether the animal is to have treatment or not, and if treatment to what extent and cost, his commercial value, rather than his necessity, being the chief factor in determining the matter, whereas, in human practice, no commercial value is ever placed upon a patient. Another difficulty, and the one that should receive the most attention in the consideration of routine manifestations and oper ations, is the importance and necessity of aseptic and antiseptic measures in all surgical procedures and dressings. In human medicine, again, our brethren have a decided advantage, so far as aseptic and antiseptic precautions and measures are concerned. The principles involved are essentially the same, but their application is far more difficult, and sometimes impossible in veterinary surgery, as the means available to the veterinary surgeon for satisfying the demands of these principles are not equal to those in human practice. Purification of the air where the animal is kept, complete sterilization and prevention of infection, position, rest, and immobilization in our patients, are problems that to a large extent remain to be solved. Herbert Spencer says that knowledge is useful in proportion to its application. Aseptic and antiseptic principles of science are of real value to the veterinary practitioner only to the extent that he is able and painstaking enough to put these principles into his everyday practice. It is a comparatively easy thing for any modernly educated veterinarian to outline the principles and practice of aseptic and antiseptic surgery, and as a practitioner he may have the disposition, but he will not always have the opportunity and ability to effect complete sterilization of everything on and about his patient. The chief question at the present time is how to most perfectly bring practice into accord with knowledge, so as to secure the best results in the ever-varying and widely different conditions in our routine work. It is my opinion that it is in the application of scientific facts and doctrines now well understood that the chief achievements in the near future are to be expected. In the past most all, if not all, the attention and credit were given to the skill displayed in the operating and mechanical part, with little or no intelligent care and after-treatment. Fully as much attention should be given to aseptic and antiseptic precautions and methods, for the science of bacteriology has taught us the relations of microörganisms to the disturbances of wound healing and the importance of preventing infection in simple as well as in extensive wounds ; therefore, asepsis and antisepsis is at the very foundation of all routine manipulations and operations, if science is the handmaid of our art. Aseptic wounds include all which are preserved from contamination or infection of any kind. An aseptic condition in a wound may be obtained either by the protection the wound received from the first against the access of any septic agent, or by the power of |