282 ON HEALING THE WOUNDS MADE IN CASTRATION. 
infiltrated with serosity, and this infiltration gives to the cord a 
greater bulk, and causes it to fill more completely the sac of the 
scrotum, and places more immediately in relation with each other 
the serous membrane which covers it and that which lines the 
parietes of the sheath. 
On a level with the ligature, whether by the clams or any other 
means, the serous vaginal membrane becomes the seat of adhe- 
sive inflammation. Vessels develope themselves in its substance, 
and a plastic lymph is exhaled from its surface, like that from the 
surface of the inflamed pleura, or from the surface of any un- 
healthy serous membrane. This lymph is not slow in becoming 
organised, and establishing an adhesion between the termination 
of the testicular cord and the lining membrane of the scrotum. 
It is thus, as may be seen, by the first adhesion, that the sac of 
the scrotum is obliterated. 
This result soonest takes place when the castration is performed 
on the covered testicle, since in that case the parietal and the 
visceral membrane of the scrotum are placed more immediately in 
a proper condition for adhesion ; that is to say, in the most per- 
fect relation with each other by the closure of the clams. This, 
however, is effected but more slowly when the operation is per- 
formed with the testicles uncovered. 
In other respects the cicatrization of the wound proceeds, as in 
wounds generally, by the development of granulations which are 
secreted from the pus, and gradually produce, by means of that 
secretion, the gradual healing of the part, and the approach of 
the divided portion of the scrotum. 
An essential condition of the primite adhesion which is effected 
at the bottom of the wound, is that the inflammation which pre- 
sides over that adhesion shall be moderate. If this inflammation 
is too intense, the fluid exhaled from the surface of the serous 
membrane approaches to the character of pus in its properties, 
and consequently has little tendency to the produce of or- 
ganization. The testicular cord then remaining in every part iso- 
lated at the centre of the wound, develops itself, becomes volumin- 
ous, and the protuberances at its extremity, which contract no 
adhesion with those of the surrounding tissues, do not delay, by 
the great bulk which they acquire, to constitute a pathological 
state designated by the name of champignon. 
This we believe to be the cause of the singular transformation 
which the spermatic cord undergoes in some cases after castra- 
tion. We have had experimental proof of this. 
The castration being effected, whether in the covered or un- 
covered way does not matter, if, when the wound is in its natural 
state of cicatrization the finger is introduced to the bottom of it, 
