Rupture of the Prepuce 223 



horse catheter, the length of which is to be supplemented by 

 splicing with two or three feet of ordinary tubing, attached 

 to a hospital irrigator. The catheter should be cautiously 

 pushed through the sheath into the prepuce, the irrigator 

 elevated one to two feet above the bull's back, the sheath 

 opening compressed about the catheter with the hand, and 

 the douching fluid caused to flow into the sheath and pre- 

 puce until they are fully distended, when it should be al- 

 lowed to escape, and the process repeated as often as con- 

 sidered expedient. 



J. Rupture of the Prepuce 



Rupture of the prepuce sometimes occurs, as shown in 

 Fig. 60, presumably due to the violence of the copulatory 

 thrust, associated with a narrow vulva, hymeneal stricture, 

 or possibly other unfavorable anatomical condition. How 

 common it may be, I am unable to state. My one example, 

 Fig. 61, is from the abattoir, and hence without clinical his- 

 tory. Clinically, rupture of the prepuce is subject to defi- 

 nite diagnosis only by the forcible protrusion of the penis, 

 as already described. It may be suspected by a history of 

 marked hemorrhage following the coitus during which the 

 lesion has occurred. 



A slight rupture may perhaps recover without impair- 

 ment of breeding efficiency, but severe or extensive rupture 

 probably closes the breeding career of the animal, because 

 the ruptured parts may, in healing, become adherent to the 

 surrounding framework of the sheath, incarcerating the 

 glans penis and causing permanent and irremediable phi- 

 mosis. 



The prevention of such injuries is more important and 

 practicable than their handling. They are most liable to 

 occur in confined males which are suddenly brought in con- 

 tact with females, not always in a proper state for coition. 

 The female may be nervous or timid at the approach of a 

 strange male or, still worse, estrum may not have reached 

 its fullness or may have begun to decline so that she will not 



