Chapter II

Another class of experiments is carried on by surgeons to develop dexterity before they attempt operations on man. Such experiments are usually carried out on dogs. The animals are invariably under complete anesthesia and usually they are killed by added ether at the end of the experiment.

Recently I attended the clinic of a throat specialist in the east. I saw child after child wheeled into the amphitheatre and relieved, usually in a few moments, of foreign bodies that they had sucked into the windpipe and that a few years ago would in many cases have caused death, either directly or as the result of a dangerous operation. So dextrous is this man that his little patients do not need any anesthetic. After his work was done I had a talk with him, and he told me that the technic of these operations had been worked out with great care on dogs that were always under an anesthetic. He also told me that by the use of two dogs he had trained fifty other men to do similar work.