ANIMAL CASTRATION. 107 



a comparatively recent period that it lias become 

 established in the domains of veterinary surgery. 



The indications by which this operation commend 

 itself to agriculturists, and others who find profit or 

 pleasure in the use or ownership of these domestic 

 animals, are several. Among them are the influence 

 -which it exercises upon the secretion of milk in cows, 

 and upon the power of accumulating i'at, and its ef- 

 fects upon the character and temper of all the large 

 females, in which relation it obviously acts as a 

 therapeutic agent, in overcoming certain peculiar 

 conditions by which they are distinguished. In re- 

 spect to the effect of the operation of spaying the 

 cow upon the milk secretion, it is a fact well estab- 

 lished that it not only increases the amount and du- 

 ration of the flow, but also improves the quality of 

 that valuable fluid, the spayed cow not only continu- 

 ing the production from eighteen to twenty-four 

 months, but giving a product far richer in the 

 elements of nutrition. This is shown by the en- 

 hanced proportions of the cream, the caseine ard the 

 sugar, which determine its richness and value, both 

 economically and commercially, after alteration. 



But even this argument in favor of spaying the 

 cow is rendered more weighty by the fact that besides 

 its influence on the milky secretion, there is also that 

 which is furnished by the consideration of its effect in 

 augmenting the deposit of fat throughout the frame, 

 for it is through this tendency that the flesh of the ani- 

 mal becomes so greatly improved in its nutritive qual- 

 ity as compared with that of the same species whep ia 



