578 DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF GENERATION. 



Castration by Scraping. — Mr. Hurford, V.S., 12th 

 Royal Lancers, now at Bangalore, Madras, in answer to the 

 question, " Which is the best mode of castration ? '' says, 

 ^' I have tried the actual cautery, the clams, the ligature, 

 and scraping, and I prefer the last ; it being simple, safe, 

 and speedy.-'^ To perform it — " You begin as for castration 

 in the ordinary way. Free the testicle, and grasp it with 

 the left hand ; divide the seminal part of the cord, and, 

 with a rough-edged knife scrape the vascular cord length- 

 ways, until you scrape through it. Simple enough, and 

 speedy too, since from first cut to last scrape takes rather 

 less than twenty seconds. I have done it in sixteen, and 

 safely, for I never knew a horse bleed more than I wanted, 

 and you have a simple wound without any foreign substances 

 to deal with. The horses stand quiet for three days, being 

 merely rubbed down. On the third day, the coagulum is 

 washed away, and the parts cleansed, and nothing more is 

 required after than to continue to keep them clean. Tetanus 

 is not a frequent sequel to castration ; though I saw last 

 month you had put a (?) after what I wrote : as to the time 

 most Hkely for an attack, I have alwaj^s found it to come on 

 just as the wound had healed, no matter in ivhat part of the 

 body it may be. Those attacks arising from castration, 

 generally manifest themselves from the fifteenth to the twen- 

 tieth day ; but I have seen them both earlier and later. As 

 a rule, I do not castrate during the hot months, nor during 

 the heavy rains. Wounds and ulcers generally take on .an 

 unhealthy action at those seasons, and particularly during 

 rains. But I have operated in every month of the year." 



In the year 1848, Mr. Broderick, V.S., 4th Madras Light 

 Cavalry, sent to the "Veterinarian" (vol. xxi, p. 607) an 

 account of this operation, practised as follows : — '^ After 

 securing the horse, cutting through the scrotum, and draw- 

 ing out the testicle, uncovered, in the usual way, divide the 

 vas deferens pretty high up ; take hold then of the vascular 

 part of tlie cord, with testicle attached, and spread it out 

 between the thumbs and fore fingers; by so doing, the sper- 

 matic artery is somewhat elevated ; now press the finger 



