SPAYING OR CASTRATION OF COWS. 
231 
had proved the cause of death; but this effect, for want of 
instruments, was not invariable, and as the wound in the 
flank was, in fact, a Caesarian operation, it was apt to give 
rise to hernia, and to be attended with all its dangers. 
Relinquishing this method, I determined to seek for the 
ovary through the natural channels. I had already felt it 
one day, while examining a cow to test her being in calf, in 
which I had made two lacerations through the root of the 
vagina, which, although they readily healed up, I afterwards 
thought ought to be made by simple incision; but the diffi- 
culty attendant on the introduction of any cutting instrument 
into an organ I knew to be mobile and elastic, and provided, 
in certain parts, with numerous large vessels, and to be 
surrounded by other highly important organs, with the want 
of fit instruments for the purpose, made me recoil from this 
likewise. In this predicament, I found myself left either 
with the choice still to persevere and perhaps in the end to 
succeed, or to abandon the affair altogether. 
After much reflection, much lucubration, many experiments 
in slaughter-houses, and on my own cows, many trials of all 
descriptions, many sacrifices, instruments of all kinds, I at 
length succeeded in rendering castration of the bovine female 
simple, facile, painless for the animal, and certain of success, 
unless in a case wherein either the subject, or the part ope- 
rated on, were in a state of disease at the time, or unless 
through some unforeseen occurrence, as has been shown by 
upwards of 200 operations which have been performed with- 
out any reverse. 
This it is that forms the foundation of the new work I have 
had the honour of submitting to the Academy of Sciences ; a 
work divided into three parts : the first part showing that 
spaying has the effect both of augmenting the return of milk 
and aptitude to fatten ; the second, its effect on the health of 
milch cows ; the third, treating of the manner of operating, 
with such modifications as I conceive ought to be entertained ; 
terminating with some reflections on the spaying of cows that 
have had calves, and of heifers. 
Chap. I . — Advantages of Spaying to Agricultural and Industrial 
Economy . 
Two questions here meet our view : one is, — Does the 
operation give rise to an augmented supply of milk? The 
other, does it favour the fattening of the beast? 
First. Let us inquire into the usual management of milch 
cows by cowkeepers and farmers, and others who keep them 
