235 
PERITONITIS THE RESULT OF CASTRATION. 
By Professor Stewart, of Glasgow. 
It is well known that peritonitis frequently follows castration, 
and it is said, in explanation, that the operation produces inflam¬ 
mation in the spermatic cord, and that this inflammation extends, 
under certain circumstances, to the peritoneum. 
I have met with one case in which this explanation will not 
serve, and am inclined to believe that it may be found insufficient 
in many other, if not in all, cases. 
On the 16th July, 1836,1 operated upon two colts, the property 
of Mr. Mackinlay. One, a year-old, struggled much. When he 
rose after the operation, I heard a slight gurgling noise proceeding 
from the scrotum. Fearing hernia or some other evil, I put my 
hand against the abdominal ring, and the noise ceased instantly. 
Up to the night of the third day the colt appeared to be doing 
pretty well, though he was dull, and the scrotum much swollen. At 
five o’clock on the morning of the fourth day, the groom found 
him rolling about the stall in great pain, and by seven o’clock he 
was dead. 
Dissection .—The external tumefaction had disappeared almost 
entirely; suppuration had not been established in the scrotum. 
The abdomen was large and tense; upon opening it some air 
escaped, and I then expected to find rupture of the stomach'or bowels. 
The stomach and bowels, however, were sound, and nearly empty. 
The peritoneum was vascular, and here and there coated with 
lymph, which in several places slightly united the bowels one to 
another. There was much serum and a little loose lymph in the 
abdominal cavity. Attached to the stomach was a tumour which 
might weigh about four pounds. It was surrounded by the omen¬ 
tum so closely that the two could not be separated without lace¬ 
ration. To the eye it looked like a macerated spleen; but it was 
short, easily torn, and large bloodvessels ran through and over it. 
It seemed to me to be nothing but effused lymph collected in some 
unaccountable way by the omentum, and entangled in its folds. 
On examination of the spermatic cords, I found one in its usual 
place and with its usual appearance, not thickened nor discoloured, 
nor divested of the eschar produced by the hot iron which I had 
employed to arrest the bleeding. The other cord, that on the right 
side, was altogether within the abdominal cavity. Its seared ex¬ 
tremity lay just at the internal opening of the ring, and quite free 
from it. The eschar was quite fast; and, in other respects, the 
