474 
CASTRATION. 
The clams are two inflexible pieces of wood, usually consist- 
ing of a portion of elder-branch split along the middle, and 
being about three quarters of an inch wide, and five or six inches 
,on g- 
Before it is cleft, a notch is to be cut round it about an inch 
from each extremity, and large and deep enough to hold two or 
three rounds of the packthread. When it is split, each of the 
corresponding extremities is sloped away from the notch to the 
end, and which, when the pieces are adjusted and tied together 
at that extremity, permits them to be separated in the form 
of a V. 
Some practitioners, when they do not use elder, make a groove 
along the plain surface of each of the pieces, in order to contain 
a caustic substance, as corrosive sublimate or blue vitriol, made 
into a paste with meal or turpentine, in order to hasten the mor- 
tification of the parts on which the clams are placed. 
The animal is cast on its left side, if the operator is a right- 
handed man, but otherwise on its right side. A piece of web is 
then passed round the fetlock of the hind leg which is up- 
permost, and, being brought to the fore arm on the same side, 
exposes the genital parts. The operator now seizes with both 
hands the left testicle (the animal being supposed to have been 
cast on that side), holds it tightly, and slides his left hand so as 
to embrace the spermatic cord above the testicle : the scrotum is 
thus tightly stretched over the testicle. The surgeon then takes 
the bistoury in his right hand, and, proceeding from before, back- 
wards, he cuts through all the envelopes of the testicle, if he in- 
tends to perform the uncovered operation : or he only cuts through 
the scrotum and dartos muscle, if he means to attempt the covered 
operation. 
In the first case, the testicle immediately protrudes from the 
cavity which contained it; in the second case, the operator tears 
with his fore-finger the cellular tissue which unites the scrotum 
with the tunica vaginalis. The operation having proceeded thus 
far, the surgeon lays down the bistoury, and seizing the testicle 
with the right hand, pulls the cord gently, but steadily, in order 
to draw it down. If the animal strongly contracts the cremaster 
muscle, nothing will sooner distract his attention, and cause him 
to cease this frequently powerful action, than pricking his lips. 
Then taking the clam in his right hand, and the testicle in his 
left, he will place the clam on the spermatic cord, above the 
epididymis, sliding it from behind, forwards : an assistant im- 
mediately seizes the clam with his pincers, and compresses it, 
and permits the operator to tie it firmly with the packthread. 
The same is then effected with regard to the other testicle. 
The clams ought to compress only the spermatic cord, and 
