Abstract
Extract
More than half of the writer's group practice involves equine cases, mostly racehorses, and a large percentage of the surgery associated with them is orthopaedic. For this reason, and because a prosthetic technique requiring good surgical facilities has been used for surgical correction of laryngeal hemiplegia, an attempt was made to design and have constructed a unit which would fulfil the following :
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A table of suitable size and strength with adequate padding.
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The table to be elevated reliably to a comfortable operating height.
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The elevation to be; rapid so that after induction of anaesthesia and elevation the horse would still be deeply anaesthetized enough to allow easy passage of the endotracheal tube.
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A safe and efficient method to move the anaesthetized post-operative patient to a recovery room.
The capital and maintenance costs of the theatre had to be met by the returns from surgical fees and, to avoid increasing these significantly, the construction was carried out using facilities already available, and using only essential items.