Abstract

The current research was conducted with the objective of developing a practical laboratory of Veterinary Pharmacology course, specifically for the purpose of evolving a practical part of the theory in the chapter of general anesthetics. The practice of the evaluation of drugs acting on the central nervous system in this discipline has difficulty with the choice of experimental model, because sometimes there are no laboratory animals such as rats, mice or rabbits; however, it is possible to use larger animals such as sheep. In this paper, we demonstrated that sheep is a suitable experimental model for demonstrating the action of drugs that produce sedation and anesthesia. The effects by the action of xylazine, ketamine and atropine can be produced in about 60 min which corresponds to time allotted in a teaching practice. Therefore, the authors recommended other sister colleges in Ethiopia and elsewhere in the world to use sheep as experimental model for demonstration of general anesthesia for their students.  

Key words: Anesthetics, drugs, central nervous system, sheep.