250 VETERINARY SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



the wounds when evacuated of their contents are found to 

 contain a sero-purulent secretion which becomes more 

 purulent as the disease advances. Later, as the peritoneum 

 becomes more extensively implicated, colics and diarrhea 

 complicate matters and death soon follows. In some cases 

 the disease takes a more subacute form from the beginning 

 or from the acute stage, and only ends fatally after three 

 to four weeks of illness. Rare cases terminate in the forma- 

 tion of abscesses which may point favorably, and after dis- 

 charging their contents leave behind an enfeebled patient 

 which slowly recovers its health, during the succeeding 

 months. 



To be successful the treatment must be prompt; the di- 

 sease must be reco'gnized early, before the infective in- 

 flammation has made any headway into the peritoneum. 

 Otherwise, the most energetic therapy is futile. As the dis- 

 ease at the beginning is only an extra-abdominal inflamma- 

 tion that is limited to the scrotum, cord and tunica vagin- 

 alis, it is really a trivial one until the inflammation advances 

 upward beyond the confines of the inguinal canal; then it 

 becomes a very formidable affliction because it is no longer 

 accessible for local treatment. The treatment should, in 

 fact, begin' before any peritonitis exists, while the disease 

 is still a local funiculitis. 



The important remedial measure consists of the estab- 

 lishment of free drainage by breaking open the incisions and 

 forcing the fingers upward along the cord so as to assure 

 evacuation of all of the secretions that have accumulated at 

 different parts of the inflamed inguinal canal. The cord 

 must be entirely loosened from the wall of the canal where 

 it is found adhered, so that no part of the canal, is capable 

 of harboring secretions, and in order to allow the local 

 treatment to reach every point of the inflamed surfaces. 

 When the canal has been thus drained it is submitted to 

 thorough irrigations with solutions of hydrogen peroxide 

 and mercuric chloride consecutively, and these are repeated 

 every three or four hours until the temperature indicates 

 that the hot-bed of the disease has been destroyed. Intern- 

 ally, large doses of quinine are helpful. 



Funiculitis, or inflammation of the spermatic cord, of 

 course supervenes all castrations, but when there is no 

 sepsis to accentuate its gravity, resolution is complete in a 

 few days. If, however, the funiculitis is infective the 

 seriousness varies. It may end in a tumefaction which, 

 after undergoing the process of sclerogenesis, becomes the 



