The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-01-29
SURGERY TO SAVE HORSES
NEW OPERATING TABLE SOLVES
 MANH


 Risk to Surgeons.
 The remarkable advance in recent years in surgical apparatus Is not con- fined to the regular hospitals. In ve- terinary surgery the modern methods also show remarkable improvement over old time methods. It is due large ly to American inventiveness that all surgical operations upon horses have been rendered not only much more hu- mane than ever before, but that the proportion of successful operations should have been immensely increased. The success of such operations, says the Denver Republican, is largely due to the use of an operating table for horses, which is rapidly coming into general use.
 The contrivance used for holding horses during operations to-day is a marvel of ingenuity. It is called an operating table. It might, perhaps, with justice, be called vice. The difficulties of such operations are of course obvious. That a horse is vain thing for safety is, of course, a truism. The new contrivance makes it possible to place @ horse in any position with the greatest ease, at the same time holding him with vice-like rigidity. Not the least important feature of this device is the saving of pain to the horses. Whereas the old methods were unavoidably brutal and dangerous, the operations to-day, with the aid of the operating tables, are much less dan gerous.
 When the horses are valuable, 1t is, of course, of the most importance that they should be treated with the least possible risk of accident Many horses have been badly injured, even killed, by the old fashioned methods of opera ting. The new tables make it impossi- ble for a horse to struggle and injure itself. It will, of course, be readily un- derstood how difficult is the work of tying down a spirited horse.
 The most common, in fact the al- most universal, method of securing the ? horse was by casting. This consisted in fastening the animals four legs to- gether with hobbies and then throwing him on heap of straw. To this meth l3d there are many serious objections. Many cases of broken back have oc- cured through the violent struggles of the animal, the backbone sometimes being literally crushed by the sudden contraction of the. great muscles of the back, and frequently spinal curvature has been caused in the same way De- casionally the neck has been broken or the skull fractured in the pr5cess of casting.
 Still another source of great danger lies in the clouds of dust laden with microbes which arise from the heap of straw when the horse Is thrown, and renders it impossible to perform an op- eration under aseptic conditions. 9th CT difficulties frequently arise, and the risks are such that most veterinarians before casting the horse consider it their duty to warn the animals owner of the risk about to be run,
 The minor operations have indeed frequently been attempted without casting or chDoroforming the horse. , Such practices are extremely danger ous, both to the operator and his pa stient. The risk of being seriously < kicked is very great, while the haste z with which the surgeon has to work is 8fatal to the successful performance of l 1@ny delicate operation.
 A number of operating tables for horses have been invented from time to time by veterinarians In European countries, but for various reasons they have not worked particularly well. An American invention has successfully s3lved the problem of operating on the horse, and this opens a new epoch in the history of veterinary surgery
 The operating table is a massive iron 1 frame of the size and shape to contain a horse standing and revolves around central horizontal axis. This revolving part, which weighs about seven hun- dred pounds, is supported upon two strong iron standards firmly bolted to the floor. The main bold of the ma chine consists of two powerful end 1 pieces connected at the top by stout | rolled girder These are connected at | the bottom and sides by strong iron | rods, those at the sides opening out | ward and allowing the horse to enter. | The end piece at the front is padded | to receive the horses head and carries | attachments for the collar ropes The | back end piece carries crank arms, gear wheels and spindles, by which the | foot and back chains can be drawn tight. The whole machine is revolved [ by means of lever and so exactly | balanced that 1t is possible to rotate heavy horse with one hand.
 When the operating table is to be used the horse is first provided with a strong head collar carrying two stout cords, and the ''bedpiece," kind of broad canvas belt, is strapped tightly around the body like blanket. The animal is then led into the frame, the side bar dropped in place to keep him in, and his head is secured by the col- lar lines. His feet are then separately secured by eathern hobbies to very heavy chain. This is attached to | gear on the back endpiece by which they are slightly drawn apart and kept from movement.
 The top of the "Bedpiece' is now hooked to a hanging Compensation bar," so arranged that the attached chains give a perfectly vertical pull to both ends of the 'bedpieee,' which adapts itself exactly to the horses form. A kind of double cushion is fixed to the side of the bar which is to be underneath when the table is re- ullved. This is attached to the top of the girder by strong chain.
 Everything is now ready for the ope- ration. By turning a winch the horse