ON THE CAESAREAN OPERATION. 183 
to be discerned by the eye alone. Then, again, we test the 
worth of their produce in our studs, where, if a stallion should 
fail to get winners or a mare to produce them, their value is 
again estimated by this second criterion. 
Had we not these criteria to guide us, we should make as 
many mistakes as our continental brethren do : for, where is the 
man who can descry the goodness of an animal by looking to his 
outward conformation] — which, even with a knowledge and 
good judgment of action, would often lead him astray in at- 
tempting to form an opinion as to goodness, or powers of en- 
durance and speed, &c. — The race alone is the unerring test. 
Some writers have gone so far as to recommend that the 
money given for Queen’s Plates, which our forefathers in 
their wisdom voted for the amelioration of the breed, should 
be appropriated for this object in other ways, such as establish- 
ing studs for stronger and heavier, and therefore, as they would 
infer, stouter, thorough-bred horses : but I hope the day will 
never arrive when our Government may be induced to en- 
tertain any such erroneous notions, and which can only in 
ignorance have been promulgated. 
ON THE CESAREAN OPERATION. 
By W. A. Cartwright, M.R.C.Y.S., Whitchurch, Salop. 
In the human subject, malformation of the pelvis is by no 
means rare ; yet the Csesarean operation is not very often had 
recourse to, and the consequence is, the child is frequently 
obliged to be sacrificed to save the patient’s life; but in our 
patients we seldom meet with such malformations, except from 
accidents fracturing some parts of the pelvis. 
The causes that may call for the performance of this opera- 
tion in our patients may be the enormous size of the head or 
hips, or, indeed, of the whole body, and when we are unable to 
remove the foetus by embryotomy; or a tumour in, or stricture 
of, the vagina, or ossification, degeneracy, or scirrhosity of the 
os uteri. Sometimes, it will be necessary to do so in cases of 
extra-uterine foetation, or retention of the foetus in the uterus, 
when the animal is becoming debilitated, and sinking in con- 
sequence. Now and then, though very rarely, torsion or twist- 
ing of the neck of the uterus occurs, when the operation may 
become necessary. 
Dr. Ramsbottom has observed, that out of forty cases wherein 
