287 
THE SEQUELS OF CASTRATION. 
they evidently began to be ill before the suppuration commenced. 
It was ordinarily from the fourth to the sixth day that symptoms 
of illness appeared. In a small number this varied from the 
sixth to the fifteenth day ; with still fewer, a month elapsed; and 
in one or two, full two months passed over. 
The symptoms usually succeeded to each other in the following 
order, after the illness commenced:—- 
1st day .—The horse often hung back to the very extent of his 
halter ; he held his head low ; he drew a little hay from the rack, 
but he did not eat it; he drank water whitened with barley- 
meal ; he rested sometimes on one hind leg, and then on the 
other ; he was tucked up ; his eyelids were partly closed ; the 
conjunctiva was red; the pulse hard, wiry, and frequent; the 
pellets of dung hard, and covered with mucus. The suppuration 
of the cords was arrested, and the wounds had a dry appearance ; 
the swelling was almost limited to the scrotum, and extended 
from before backwards ; it was hot, painful, and it terminated 
abruptly in a kind of ridge ; it contained a red-coloured trans¬ 
parent iiquid, as was evident when scarifications were made. 
2d day .—The same general symptoms; but the"tumour was 
enlarged and very hard and painful; the animal shrunk when he 
was pressed on the side of the belly or the flanks; the pulse was 
hard and quick. 
3d day .—The horse no longer pulled his hay, but he continued 
to drink ; the tumour was hard, and sometimes extended be¬ 
fore as far as the girth, and descended along the thighs. In 
some horses it was on the left side, but oftener on the right. 
The swelling was neither so hot, nor so hard, nor so painful; when 
it was pressed, the mark of the finger remained on it, and it was 
always terminated by a ridge well marked. The parietes of the 
abdomen were more tender, and the animal groaned when they 
were pressed upon. The pulse was not so strong, but quite as 
frequent. 
On the fourth day all the symptoms were aggravated; the 
tumour extended to the very point of the breast; it reached the 
fore limbs, and spread down the hind ones as far as the hock ; 
it was softer, not so hot, and its contents were more fluid, and 
not so highly coloured. The pulse was feeble and small, but 
very frequent. 
From the fourth to the fifth day the horse rapidly became 
weaker; he staggered when he attempted to move; he stood 
wide behind, the better to support himself; and had not this been 
so, he would have been forced to have stood wide on account of 
the swelling of his thighs. The pulse was become intermittent, 
thready; it was still quicker and quicker; the nostrils were 
dilated, and, at length, the horse fell and died. 
