I have always remembered a delightful story told to us by an anaesthesia professor who had more than a passing interest in veterinary anaesthesia. His anecdotes ranged from how easy it is to intubate crocodiles to the pitfalls of embarking on anaesthesia in a large animal like a priceless racehorse without a Boyle's machine capable of delivering a sufficiently high fresh gas flow. I remember being told that it is essential to handle the extremely potent opioid carfentanil, used to tranquilise large and dangerous animals like rhinoceros, grizzly bear and elephant, with protective gloves as even spilling the drug on human skin would be sufficient to induce narcosis. Carfentanil has a potency 10,000 times greater than morphine and is alleged to have been used in aerosolised form in the Moscow theatre hostage crisis of 2002.
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