CRYPTORCHIDECTOMY 259 



abnormality should if possible be determined in the pre- 

 operative examination and when discovered the patient 

 should be cast and the testicles, tunica vaginalis and all 

 should be removed with the ecraseur. 



CRYPTORCHIDECTOMY. 



' SYNONYM. — Ridgling castration. 



DEFINITION. — Cryptorchidectomy is the operation of 

 ablating hidden testicles — testicles that have not descended 

 into the scrotal sac. 



INDICATIONS. — It may be said that the operatiqn is 

 always indicated, in every domestic animal, where cryptor- 

 chidism exists, as the individual so affected is always a de- 

 generate, and never a good specimen from which to breed; 

 The operation is, however, not very frequently demanded 

 in city work-horses because the hard-worked ridgling, al- 

 though sometimes somewhat troublesome, is by no means 

 as intolerable a creature as the young, growing farm ridg- 

 ling, whose impelling impulses render him absolutely un- 

 safe in the pasture. It is in the springtime when it is de- 

 sired to turn the two- or the three-year old into the pasture 

 with other horses that the economic importance of castra- 

 tion presents itself to the owner of a ridgling. If the young 

 ridgling could be economically reared to maturity it is very 

 doubtful whether many of these subjects would ever be pre- 

 sented to the practitioner for operation. 



Cryptorchidism results from some obscure perversion of 

 foetal evolution. It is frequently hereditary. Mares bred 

 to cryptorchid horses give birth to a remarkably large per 

 cent of colts similarly affected. It is much more common 

 in grade animals than in well bred ones. In the latter it is 

 usually traceable to inbreeding or defective nutrition in 

 utero. The condition is physiological during the first few 

 months after birth in some mammals, but in most species the 

 testicles should descend into the scrotum during the fcetal 

 life. The hidden testicle of youth is known as pseudo-crypt- 

 orchid. It is this tendency of growth and development that 

 is evidently responsible for the hidden testicle of mature sub- 

 jects. The exact cause of the retarded or arrested descent 

 cannot be satisfactorily explained, and is a subject belong- 

 ing more to the domain of embryology or teratology than 

 surgery. It is, however, only reasonable to expect that the 

 effort of nature to guide the testicle from the lumbar region 

 to the scrotum during the fcetal life should occasionally mis- 



