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ON TORSION OF THE ARTERIES. 
is a letter from Mr. Harris, a Herefordshire farmer, describing 
the cause, treatment, and method of preventing this disease, 
which may, perhaps, not be uninteresting to the readers of The 
Veterinarian: it is as follows “ This stricture, or gut-tie, 
as it is called, is occasioned by an erroneous method of castrating 
the calves, which the breeders practise throughout Herefordshire. 
They open the scrotum, take hold of the testicles with their 
teeth, and tear them out with violence, by which means all the 
vessels belonging to the part are ruptured; the vasa deferentia, 
entering by the holes of the transverse and oblique muscles, pass 
over the ureters in acute angles, at which turning, by theirgreat 
length and elastic force, the peritoneum is ruptured; the vas 
deferens is severed from the testicles, and, springing back, forms 
a kind of bow from the urethra, where they are united over the 
ureters to the transverse and oblique muscles, and then again 
unite where they first entered the abdomen. The part of the 
gut that is tied is the jejunum, at its turning from the left side 
to the right; there the bow of the gut hangs over the bow of the 
vas deferens, which, by a sudden motion of the beast, forms a 
hitch or tie of the string.” 
Mr. H. says he has cut them for the gut-tie from three months 
to nine years old, A perpendicular incision, four inches wide, 
is made under the third lumbar vertebra on the left side; the 
beast is kept standing, the hand is then introduced to find the 
part affected. The knife used is in the form of a large fishhook, 
with an edge on the concave side; it is fixed to a ring; the middle 
finger crooks round the back of the knife, the end of the thumb 
on Its edge, so that it cannot wound the intestines. I divide 
the string or strings, and bring out one or both. The opera¬ 
tor is cautioned not to wound the ureters. The peritoneum 
is drawn together by sutures, also the skin; digestives are used 
to the wound, and' some salts are given. Mr. H. recommends 
ligatures to be applied to the spermatic vessels, or otherwise the 
cautery to be used as a preventive. 
Colesliill, May 9, 1834. 
ON TORSION OF THE ARTERIES, 
FOR THE PURPOSE OF ARRESTING HEMORRHAGE IN 
VETERINARY OPERATIONS. 
By Mr. W. Youatt. 
A few days after the appearance of Mr. Costello’s excellent 
paper on torsion, in The Veterin ari an for April last, a pointer 
bitch was brought to my infirmary with a large scirrhous tumour 
