ON THE LAND

Northern Advocate, 18 June 1925, Page 2

ON THE LAND

ANIMAL SURGERY;

USE OF ANAESTHETICS,

Immense advantages are offered to the present-day veterinary student in the provision of anaesthetics, both local and general. Instead of the fight with twitch and hobble, a puncture or two with a fine hypodermic needle through skin pinched between the fingers enables the surgeon to perform almost any operation, including tooth extraction and laying open of fistulous withers, poll evil, and quittor.

What is called "nerve-blocking" in America is a great aid to diagnosis of obscure lamenesses. For example, we may take navicular disease in the horse's foot. It is very generally mistaken for shoulder lameness. Doubt as to foot or shoulder lameness can be solved in a few minutes by syringing cocaine into the region of the plantar nerves passing down on the border of the back tendons and dividing over the fetlock into branches. The anaesthetic in near contact with the main trunk acts down to the extremities, and within a few minutes of injection, and lasting approximately half an hour, the horse that was lame from a foot trouble will trot sound.

That is absolute proof of the foil of the foot being the region affected, bur is not, taken alone, proof of navicular disease, as the same result of insensibility to pain would occur if a festered corn or other source of lameness was present. The rest will be discovered by a process of elimination. One can see iP there is a corn, sidebone, ringbone, sand-crack, laminitis, cracked heel, coronitis, or other things the matter, and in the absence of all such, and having regard to the peculiar habit of pointing in the stable, a diagnosis of navicular ■JiK»ase will be pretty

near the mark, and indicate the "need for making the insensibility permanent by means of division of the nerves instead of the "blocking" by a local anaesthetic.

As to whether a hind leg with a swing outwards is due to stifle or hock pain when in action, the same means may be adopted for positive or negative proof of lameness, despite the injection or its temporary disappearance.

Unnerving or the division of nerves of sensation to diseased bones or painful tumors is now accomplished without the risk of casting—a not inconsiderable one in the case, say, of a valuable stallion with some minor operation necessary, and which he will not submit to without hobbles.

For the removal of foreign bodies, such as flies and oat husks, from the eyes, the new local anaesthetics are invaluable, both to the sufferer and the would-be reliever. Anyone who has tried with brush and fingers to get a hay seed out of a horse's eye or a bullock's, will have observed how the powerful retractor muscle pulls back the globe and forces forward the haw, and thus obscures the field of the operator s vision. Novocaine and other similar preparations temporarily paralyse the appendages as well as deprive the highly sensitive conjunctival membrane of sensation. Then the brush or the deft finger can be employed.

RUSSIAN BUTTER,

It will probably come as a surprise to a great many farmers in this country to learn that the Russians have decided to adopt the most up-to-date measures for the standardisation of their export dairy products, especially J butter. Apparently they have been finding that the markets they supplied in pre-war days are now much move difficult to capture, partly because of opposition of trading with a country where the supplies are likely to be held up at any time by the Government in order that the people may live more cheaply, and partly because the quality is greatly lacking in uniformity. A writer in "Dalgety's Review" for Australia, dealing with the subject sa y a; —"Quite elaborate regulations have been passed, and they will be brought into force immediately. All export butter will have to pass through certain scheduled ports. As soon as it i arrives at any of these centres it will i be registered and transferred at once to cold storage, where it will be graded ! by experts, many of whom, no doubt. I will be appointed from abroad. Within [ three days of delivery the butter mast Ibe stamped by the official grader, who 1 vv iil use a score card that places parI fcicular emphasis upon aroma, flavour, I and finish.

The writer concludes with some warning words, which are just as applicable in New Zealand as in Australia. He says:—"lt may be years before Australia feels the effect of Russian competition in Tooley Street, but, it will develop in time, and the only way to defeat it is by maintaining a very high standard at all times and never forgetting that what England wants above everything, else is.: uniformity and regularity of supplies." GLEANINGS. The best cure for a soil that runs together and packs is organic matter, and organic matter is the measure Oi soil fertility.

During the past year over 4000 pigs have been despatched from the Otorohanga trucking yards to various bacon factories, their value being estimated at £11,500.

Aberdeen County Council has decided to urge upon tlie Board of Agriculture for Scotland the necessity for legislation to be introduced to bring about the elimination of scrub bulls.

Sometimes fertilisers have been applied without evidence of appreciable effect upon yields of crops, simply because they have been used upon soils deficient in organic matter.

Montreal handled 165,139,396 bushels of grain during 1924, the largest amount ever handled by the port in any one year, according to the final figures issued by the harbour commissioners. The estimated production of beet sugar in Europe in the past six months totalled 4,504,5901b. The campaign to stimulate its production resulted in an increase of 2,117,0001b, compared with last season. Soils deficient in phosphates produce grass with a low content of phosphates. Such phosphate-starved grass will inevitably produce phosphate-starved animals, which will become unprofitable to their owners. An electric beehive, which has resulted in an increased output of honey, is lighted and heated by electricity during the winter, with the result that the bees start to collect honey earlier in the spring than usual. The export of Ayrshire cattle from Scotland to South Africa, interrupted by disease restrictions, has now been resumed. Owing to the successes achieved by the breed at the Rand and other Shows in South Africa during tho last two years, and also its performances at the 1923 and 1924 London Dairy Shows the Ayrshire has become very popular in this country. drain on dairy lands is particularly heavy. For instance, a dairy cow producing 7001b of milk a year requires as much phosphorus for milk alone as is contained in 2001b of average fertiliser, to say nothing of the quantity required for bone growth and the production of a calf. She also requires! for milk alone more nitrogen than there is in 2501b of nitrate of soda.