554 DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF GENERATION. 



bursts and discharges its contents into the abdomen, death 

 becomes inevitable. 



CASTRATION. 



British custom has so universally established the practice 

 of castration, that, with the exception of the comparatively 

 small number of horses kept for the purposes of racing and 

 covering, every male horse in our own country may be said 

 to be a gelding.^ With us, the colt is emasculated at a 

 very early period of his life, before the testicles have acquired 

 any glandular or secretory power, and, consequently, before 

 any of those remarkable phenomena, which it is well known 

 attend on the production of semen, have had opportunity of 

 developing themselves. A comparison of the stone-horse 

 with the gelding, cannot fail to demonstrate that the former 

 is an animal in many respects of very superior pretensions to 

 the latter. The gelding falls off in his physical structure 

 no less than he dwindles down in his vis vitce to much below 

 what he would have proved as an entire animal. His neck 

 loses its beautiful crest and powerful development ; his quar- 

 ters fall away in volume and plumpness ; his penis and 

 sheath look more like a remnant of such parts than the 

 organs themselves ; indeed, to such an extent in some horses 

 that have been cut early does this degeneration proceed, 

 that, without looking close, we hardly, at first sight, distin- 

 guish between the gelding and the mare. And, as to the 

 head, so much has it lost of its original contour and ex- 

 pression, that we do not discover in our examinations of the 

 mouth (before the tusks appear) whether we are looking at 

 that of a mare or a gelding. The coat of the stallion is like- 

 wise of finer texture ; added to which, he is in possession of a 

 gracefulness of form and carriage and action, which he no 

 longer retains in the eunuch condition ; but, on the con- 

 trary, tame down into a comparatively mild, quiet, tractable 

 animal, reduced in stamina and constitution, and, as a con- 



' 111 France, such colts as are destined for draught, as well as for covering, 

 are left entire ; those only are cut which are destined for the saddle. The spay- 

 ing of mares is prohibited by law — has been, since the year 171 7 — in consequence 

 of its having proved the occasion of many deaths. (Hurtrel d'Arboval.) 



