454 
ON THE SPAYING OF MILCH COWS. 
order to escape the blows which the animal would give with it 
when the arm was passed into the abdomen. 
In default of a wall provided with rings and buckles, a strong- 
palisade will do, or any solid barrier, or trees growing at a con¬ 
venient distance from each other, and to which a stronor bar 
of wood may be fixed. 
The animal being secured, the operator, armed with the convex 
bistoury, which he holds in his right hand, places himself at 
the left shoulder of the cow, with his left hand resting on her 
back. That hand serves as a point of support for him to retire or rest 
upon, if it should be necessary, during her struggles, and also 
enabling him to use his right hand more effectually. He then 
places the edge of the bistoury on the middle and a little nearer 
the superior part of the left flank, and at one incision cuts 
through the skin and the muscles of that part vertically. 
The flank having been opened, and the peritoneum with it, 
the operator enlarges the incision so as to be enabled to introduce 
his hand and arm. Taking the bistoury in his left hand, he 
now gently and cautiously introduces his right hand into the ab¬ 
domen, directing it towards the pelvis, and behind the cul de sac of 
the paunch, where he will find the horns of the uterus. When 
he has recognised this viscus, he carries his hand a little above 
its bifurcation, where the ovaries are situated between the folds 
of the suspensor ligaments of the uterus ; he seizes one of the 
ovaries, which he detaches at its posterior part, by means of the 
thumb and fore finger, and he passes his finger along the convexity 
of the ovary, in order to separate it completely from the peri¬ 
toneal ligament which sustains it. Then he takes the ovary in 
his hand, he draws it gently towards him, and by means of the 
thumb nail, he saws the vessels and the horn of the fallopian 
tube on his fore finger, which offers him a point of support under 
these vessels : finally, he breaks the cord by successive gentle tugs 
at it, while he is sawing it with his nail; and he thus brings out 
the ovary. 
He next introduces his hand a second time into the abdomen, and 
proceeds to extract the second ovary in the same manner, after 
which he closes the wound with two or three sutures, taking care 
to leave a little opening at the lower part of it, through which the 
matter of suppuration may escape, and which, without this precau¬ 
tion, would burrow between the skin and the muscles, or accu¬ 
mulate in the abdomen, and be a cause of irritation, and probably 
of danger. 
The ovaries may, if the operator likes, be brought through 
the opening made in the flank, and detached by the points of 
the fingers ; but this manipulation may sometimes be attended 
