CRYPTORCHID OPERATIONS. 397 



they are usual it would seem worth while trying the effects of castration 

 as soon as any enlargement of the prostate was discovered. The 

 recorded cases of this operation in elderly men suffering from enlarged 

 prostate have been very favourable. The adoption of this mode of 

 treatment seems to have been partly due to John Hunter's comparison 

 of the prostate of a bull with that of a steer, and to Griffiths, who 

 observed the degenerated condition of the prostate in various animals 

 after castration. Such observations must be very familiar to veterinary 

 surgeons, and probably many of them are acquainted with the effects 

 of castration on the prostates of different animals at different ages, the 

 rate at which the prostate usually atrophies after operation, and 

 whether enlargement or disease of the prostate is ever known in gelded 

 animals. I do not know whether any such information is recorded, 

 but I have not seen it.* Dr. White, who was the first to advise the 

 operation for senile hypertrophy, argued that castration ought to be 

 beneficial by analogy, from the effect oophorectomy in women had 

 upon uterine fibro-myomata. At any rate, the operation has now been 

 performed for the relief of enlarged prostates of old men a good many 

 times, and most encouraging results have been recorded, amongst 

 others by the following operators : 



F. Ramm of Christiania : two cases, with good results. Ccntralblatt 

 fur Chirurgie, No. 17, p. 387, 1894. 



Dr. Francis Haynes, Los Angeles, California : three cases, all 

 satisfactory. Buffalo Med. and Surg. Journal, March, 1894. 



Fremont Smith : one case completely cured in six weeks. A nnah 

 of Surgery, p. 52, July, 1894. 



Dr. Arthur Powell, Bengal : one case much relieved. Brit. Med. 

 Journal, November i8th, 1893. 



Mayer and Haenel : a bad case cured in two months. Ccniralblatt 

 fiir Ham- mid Sex. -Org., Band v, Heft 7, 1894. 



The references are taken from a resume by Mr. Hurry Fenwick in 

 the ' Medical x\nnual ' for 1895. 



Mr. R. H. Clarke's case, Veterinarian, 1895, p. 431. 



CRYPTORCHID OPERATIONS. 



102. A three-year-old Percheron horse, entered 12th August, 1892. 



Had been bought two months before in the belief that he was a 

 gelding. 



On examining the scrotal region no cicatrix could be discovered. 

 Neither testicle had descended. The animal was prepared from the 

 I2th to the i8th August by light diet, and internal administration of 

 three and a half ounces of sulphate of soda daily. 



Operation was performed on the right side according to the Belgian 

 method. The horse was cast on the left side, the right hind limb 

 carried forward and kept abducted by means of two strips of webbing. 

 The scrotum and surrounding parts were most carefully disinfected. 



At the entrance to the inguinal canal we found a rudimentary 

 vaginal sheath containing a portion of the vas deferens. The inguinal 



* Annals of Surgery, 1893. 



