244 
MR. YOUATT’s veterinary LECTURES. 
place docking, especially if the stump has been seared too 
severely; and nicking, if the first bandage has not been loosened 
or removed sufficiently early: but, after both these operations 
it occasionally appears without any assignable cause, and without 
the possibility of attributing any blame to the operator. The 
atmosphere, either its temperature or variable composition 
(and I am often inclined to think, the latter more than the 
former), has influence. Several horses will die one after the 
other in the same stables, or the same district, in consequence 
of these operations; and after that years will elapse before this 
dreadful disease will again appear. 
Castration, when the colt was not properly prepared for the 
operation, or the searing iron was applied too severely, or the 
clams bound or screwed too tight, or the animal put to work too 
soon after the operation, or exposed to unusual cold, is occasion¬ 
ally followed by tetanus. Hurtrel d’Arboval relates that twenty- 
four horses were castrated on the same day, at the depot at Bee, 
in the department of TEure. By some strange fancy of the 
riding-master, they were afterwards led, four times in every day, 
through a deep pond of water, that was supplied by a very cold 
spring. Sixteen of them died of tetanus between the 10th and 
15th day after the operation. At Rennes, a horse, after cas¬ 
tration, was exercised until he was covered with perspiration, 
and .then suddenly plunged into the river. He died tetanic. 
He had been previously condemned, and this was done by way 
of experiment. Hurtrel d’Arboval also states, and they are very 
important facts, that the Americans used to have recourse to the 
cautery in the castration of their horses and mules, and that 
tetanus was so frequent, that the price of the horse or mule 
became doubled when he had recovered from the operation ; 
and that bulls in whom the hemorrhage was arrested by the 
application of a caustic, were not exempt from fatal attacks of 
tetanus after castration. He also adds, that M. Gelin, an 
American veterinary surgeon, has assured him, that this disease 
never attacks those that are operated on by the use of the clams 
in the uncovered way. 
Tetanus cured hy Castration .—While castration appears to be 
so frequent a cause of tetanus, M. Taflfanel has inserted in the 
Recueil deMed. Vet. for August 1830, an account of the cure 
of tetanus by this operation. An entire horse, nine years old, 
which had always been most annoyingly salacious, was suddenly 
seized with tetanus from some cause perfectly unknown. The 
usual means were adopted, but the 14th day arrived, and the animal 
became worse and worse; every muscle was fixed, and the 
breathino' so laborious as to threaten immediate death. In the 
