412 
CASTRATION OF ORYPTORCHIDS. 
and back stitches in the skin wound may be loosened, and the latter 
washed out once daily with carbolic, creolin or sublimate solution. 
Provided fever or loss of appetite is not marked, after-treatment is 
unnecessary, and the animal may return to work in about fourteen 
days. 
It is sometimes difficult and requires patience to find the testicle. 
If needful, the other hand can be introduced into the rectum, and 
attempts made to force the testicle through the opening. Thus exposed, 
it is secured with a cord, covered with sterilised cotton-wool, the hand 
which has been introduced into the rectum is at once cleansed, and the 
operation proceeds as above described. 
When the spermatic cord is very short, it renders ligation particularly 
difficult. Under such circumstances the ecraseur must be used. 
In one case of Moller’s the testicle could not be found. He therefore 
introduced the entire hand into the abdominal cavity, and discovered a soft 
body the size of two fists. This he at first took to be the urinary bladder, 
which further examination showed, however, to be in its normal position, 
whilst the soft body lay near the inner abdominal ring, was movable, and 
carried at one end a firm object which resembled a testicle. Convinced that 
he had to deal with a degenerated testicle, he extended the opening in the 
skin and abdominal walls sufficiently far to allow the testicle and spermatic 
cord to be ligatured. After removing the testicle and suturing both the skin 
and abdominal walls with strong silk (interrupted sutures), recovery occurred 
without complication. 
A closer examination showed that the testicle had almost entirely dis¬ 
appeared, and a cyst containing 16 ounces of serum, and having a circum¬ 
ference of 14 inches, had formed in the spermatic cord. At the lower end of 
the cord lay a lipoma, about the size of a duck’s egg, and partly ossified. 
This tumour was thought to be the degenerated testicle, until attention was 
directed by Degive, who has repeatedly seen similar cases in his extensive 
practice, to hydrocele of the spermatic cord. Degive scratches the hydrocele 
with the finger-nail until it discharges into the abdominal cavity, when the 
testicle can easily be removed. Tapken operates on bulls from the left side. 
The animals are starved for a day or two to prevent the rumen being distended. 
Tapken sometimes found the testicles just below the spinal column enclosed 
in a fold of peritoneum. 
Castration of cryptorchid boars is similar to that of horses, with the one 
exception, that a flank incision is preferable. Williams and Tapken castrate 
from the flank. Tapken recommends operating about the second or third 
month, and by the same method as is employed in spaying sows; the testicle, 
however, is sometimes difficult to find. Levens describes a case where the 
castrator had removed the boar’s kidney instead of the testicle, as was 
discovered on slaughtering the animal. The other kidney had undergone 
compensatory hypertrophy. Lungwitz, in a boar, found both testicles 
adherent to one another in the abdominal cavity. Vennerholm operated on 
dogs by making an incision about an inch on one side of the prepuce, intro¬ 
ducing the forefinger and drawing the testicle forward into the wound! The 
cord was then ligatured. 
