274 THE SPAYING (OR CASTRATION) OF MILCH COWS. 
character of phlyctenoid herpes of the lips, nose, and pituitary 
membrane. 
Recueil de Mid. Vit., Nov. 1849. 
The Spaying (or Castration) of Milch Cows. 
Our readers have already been made acquainted with the per- 
severing efforts with which M. Charlier, of Rheims, pursues expe- 
riments, commenced some years back, on the castration of milch 
cows*. 
Should he succeed in his object, it will turn out of vast import- 
ance to farmers and dairymen 
The following letter from the mayor of a commune in France, in 
which M. Charlier had operated on two cows, has been presented 
to the public by M. Bouley, from the circumstance of its author 
being, as a non-professional, an entirely disinterested party. 
No person hesitates to admit the advantages derivable from the 
castration of stallions and bulls ; I do not hesitate to aver, that equal, 
if not double, advantages are to be derived from the same operation 
performed on cows. 
It is to America we are indebted for this discovery. In 1832, 
an American traveller, a lover of milk, no doubt, asked for some 
of a farmer at whose house he was. Surprised at finding at this 
farm better milk than he had met with elsewhere, he wished to 
know the reason of it. After some hesitation the farmer avowed 
that he had been advised to perform on his cows the same opera- 
tion as was practised on the bulls. The traveller was not long in 
spreading this information. The veterinary society of the country 
took up the discovery, when it got known in America. The 
English, those ardent admirers of beef-steaks and roast beef, pro- 
fited by the new procedure, as they know how to turn every thing to 
account, and at once castrated their heifers in order to obtain a more 
juicy meatt. The Swiss, whose principal employment is agricul- 
tural, had the good fortune to possess a man distinguished in his 
art, who foresaw and was anxious to realize the advantages of cas- 
trating milch cows. M. Levrat, veterinary surgeon at Lausanne, 
found in the government of his country an enlightened assistant in 
his praiseworthy and useful designs, so that at the present day 
instructions in the operation of spaying enter into the require- 
ments of the programme of the professors of agriculture, and the 
gelders of the country are not permitted to exercise their calling 
until they have proved their qualification on the same point. 
* Articles on the subject will be found in The Veterinarian, vol. vii, 
viii, xi, and xxi. — E d. Vet. 
f Whereabouts ? In America ? Certainly not in Britain that ever we 
heard of. — E d. Vet. 
