76 SPRINGTIME SURGERY 



and antisepsis. When we compare our own 

 efforts with such men, we are somewhat inclined 

 to lose faith in the value of antiseptic precau- 

 tions and to lose confidence in ourselves. 



From long practice, professional ridgling cas- 

 trators become expert and the time required to 

 perform the operation with them, usually amounts 

 to but a few seconds or minutes after the animal 

 is secured. With the hands of the skillful 

 though unscientific operator ordinarily clean, 

 the peritoneum is far less likely to become con- 

 taminated than with the inexperienced operator, 

 who usually employs some half-way measures 

 toward securing asepsis and frequently hunts for 

 the testicle for an hour, or more, and sometimes 

 even then fails to find it, much to his own em- 

 barrassment and humiliation. The obvious de- 

 duction is supplant lack of experience by the 

 strictest precautionary measures at our hands. 

 In fact, however skilled one becomes he should 

 most religiously follow the technic of preparing 

 the operative field, instruments and hands, as 

 though he expected to search indefinitely for the 

 hidden testicle. 



