Castration 



219 



From the foregoing it will be seen that the indications for 

 castration have been reduced to a more limited compass than 

 during earlier years, and there can be scant objection thereto 

 because of the present enormously high price of breeding cattle, 

 so that it becomes one of the greatest duties of the practicing 

 veterinarian to resort to every possible means to preserve to the 

 utmost the breeding power of well bred and valuable animals. 



We hold therefore that the wholesale castration of nympho- 

 maniac cows without first resorting to earnest attempts at curing, 

 the malady, robs them of their parturient function in a manner 

 contrary to the interests of science, veterinary practice and stock- 

 breeding. 



According to veterinary authors cows may be castrated by : 



^7. The flank incision ; 



b. The vaginal incision ; 



c. Ligation of the ovary through the inferior rectal wall (Ex- 

 perience of Trachsler-Berdes, Koch's Encyclopaedia der gesamm- 

 tenThierheilkunde und Tierzucht). 



For a number of years we have endeavored to perfect the 

 method of castrating cows. We have made the following in- 

 vestigations upon cows designed for slaughter : 



a. Ca.stration by tearing the ovaries from their attachments. 

 In heifers with thin, weak ligaments the detachment of the 

 ovaries per rectum or vaginam is comparatively easily and 

 quickly effected, while in old animals with strong broad liga- 

 ments the operation becomes impossible even per vaginam. 

 The character of the lesion after division by tearing the ovary 

 away in young animals is analogous to that induced by the 

 ecraseur, while, in old cows, the ligamentous apparatus of the 

 ovary tears very irregularly and .sometimes involves the uterine 

 cornua. 



The danger from fatal hemorrhage may be excluded b}' after 

 compression, the artery being compres.sed between the thumb 

 and fingers for a few minutes, but in one case we observed in 

 the abdomen, one hour after castration, about one liter of blood. 

 We have further found that the power of ovarial regeneration 

 in the heifer is astonishing and that if a fragment of ovarian 

 tissue as large as a pea or even a pinhead is left on the ligament 

 it may rapidly develop and within 9-10 days contain one or two 

 large corpora lutea or a cyst. [Upon the western plains of 



