CASTRATION OF THE DOG 105 



be given a bath, food withheld for 24 hours, and the 

 intestinal tract emptied by giving a dose of castor oil, 

 and later enemas. 



Animals should not be confined -within a cage con- 

 tinuously during the process of preoperative prepara- 

 tion, but should 1)0 taken out to encourage \irination 

 and defecaiion. 



There are occasions when the veterinarian is obliged 

 to operate without the advantages of hospital facili- 

 ties and sometimes he is required to perform the oper- 

 ation when he cannot give the patient jjroper i)i'epa- 

 ration, but this has been done with good results in 

 the more hardy breeds; however, in view of the pos- 

 sibility of an rnisatis factory outcome, it is not wise to 

 follow this pi'actic(^ even in the cas^s of animals ha\- 

 ing the moi'e I'Ugged constitutions. 



Restraint. — The subject should be muzzled and con- 

 fined on an operating table or the body suspended by 

 means of tapes which are looped about the hiiul It'gs 

 and hung upon nails driven in a wall. If a table is 

 availal)le, the position of the animal may be changed 

 with ease and this greatly facilitates the excention of 

 the operative teehnic in that the tension of th" mus- 

 cles of the al)dominal wall at the site of opei'ation 

 may be diminished if necessary, by changing the posi- 

 tion of the body from perpendicular to almost hori- 

 zontal. 



Anesthesia. — This is one operation where there is 

 every reason for the employment of anesthesia of some 

 kind, and yet it is a deplorable fact that many animals 

 have been barbarously handled by inhumane oi)erators 

 none too skillful in this bi'anch of surgery. None of 

 our patients toleialc morphin or anesthetic compounds 

 containing morphin better than dogs, and there is no 



