Parrot Undergoes Major Operation

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 232, 20 December 1927, Page 11

Parrot Undergoes Major Operation

Un heard-of Experimen t ANAESTHETIC GIVEN

Joey felt the world lift and sway as he sniffed the cotton wool held invitingly to him and he spread his wings and went floating divinely, in great swoops over hills and plains with the scent of the gums and wattle coming delightfully to him again. Thirty minutes later his flight ended abruptly on the table of the Newmarket Hotel and his head felt strangely “heady.” He offered it to be In all his 26 years he had never had such .in experience, this Australian parrot, and even then he did not know that he had been a patient in a major operation, the like of which had never been performed in New Zealand, or perhaps, in the world before. For 11 months he had suffered a fibrous growth, akin to cancer, which had grown to such a size that it hung below his perch. His owner, Mr. D. Cairns, of the Newmarket Hotel, called in Miss P. Howard Dawson, the well-known veterinary physician, and she decided that the bird’s state was so critical that an operation must be performed immediately. Accordingly Joey was laid out on a table last evening and given an anaesthetic, which had to be administered very carefully. From 5.15 to 8.45 Miss Dawson worked swiftly, making two incisions, and removing a growth the size of a pigeon’s egg. As the last stitch was put in Joey opened his eyes and asked where he was. Five minutes later he was climbing about his cage and chattering merrily. He is in perfect health and spirits to-day. This is the first big operation with an anaesthetic that Miss Dawson has ever performed on a bird, and she has never heard of it being done before. “They always say it cannot be done,” she said, “and most vets consider the risk is too great.”

The stitches will not be removed for four or five days, but needless to say Joey is certainly not the hypochondriac pictured above. Miss Dawson has done some interesting things with animals. She once treated a cat successfully with violet rays.