Turkish figures smoking a pipe standing beside a horse’ sketch by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873)
The Syrian Horse
In 1851, a western author traveling through the middle east witnessed a peculiar surgery performed on a horse. While the actual surgery was not ground breaking, the anesthesia was… Hashish!
‘A marshal (horse vet) with his assistant’ from Libro de menescalcía et de albeytería et de física de las bestias by Juan Álvarez de Salamiellas in 1390
On his travels from Syria to Asia Minor between 1842 through 1850, author Frederick Arthur Neale took in enough sites and adventures to fill a book and that’s just what he did in ‘Eight Years in Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor’.
While enjoying the city of Acre in Syria (present day Israel) he stumbled on a curious practice. Asked if he wanted to watch a surgery being performed on a horse he curiously accepted. The horse was taken off its feet with the legs strapped together in the normal manner he was accustomed to but when it came time to administer the anesthesia, the Turkish surgeons used a new technique and drug.
Covering the horses nose and mouth with a bandage, only a small section was left open for air. The surgeons next pulled out a chibouk (turkish/ottoman) pipe packing the bowl full of cannabis topped with hashish mixed with tobacco and poppy seeds among other narcotics. The pipe stem was inserted into the opening of the horses mouth, sparking the cannabis blended bowl for the horse to inhale.
‘Operation on a horse’, illustration from the Book of Farriery by Ahmed ibn al-Husayn ibn al-Ahnaf in 1210
The horse became so sedated by the cannabis laced bowl that the surgeons were able to perform the operation without the horse moving. The general practice of the time was to use a chloroform soaked rag held over the horses mouth and nose causing the horse to remain sedated, this lead to a long recovery time while the drugs wore off.
When this hashish based surgery was completed, buckets of cold water were thrown on the horse who quickly revived right before their eyes…
The hashish horse surgery was a curious success!
“In Acre, there is a plentiful supply of Turkish veterinary surgeons; and about the most curious sight I ever witnessed was a horse under treatment by these practitioners.
First they threw it on the ground, by tying its four feet or hoofs so closely together, that it became as helpless as an infant; then a tight bandage was placed over the nose and mouth, only leaving sufficient space for the animal to breathe. A Turkish pipe, containing tobacco, bang, hashish, cuscus, and other narcotics, was inserted in one of the nostrils, and a spark being placed upon the bowl, the horse involuntarily inhaled the stupefying smoke; which had the effect, after a very short period, of rendering it unconscious of what was going on.
Then the skill of surgery was brought into play, and the fetlock of the poor brute being laid open, a perfect hive of worms, deposited by a fly, common in some parts of the desert between Damascus and Baghdad, was duly extracted. The wound was closed up with pitch sticking-plaster, and the bands being unloosed, buckets of cold water were thrown over the horse; who quickly revived. The foot was now placed in a sling, and a few days afterwards, so effective had been the operation, the horse was fit to pursue its daily avocations.”
– Eight Years in Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor’ by author Frederick Arthur Neale
pages from ‘Eight Years in Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor’ by author Frederick Arthur Neale
‘operation au travail bourgelat’ postcard from Alfort, France