ON THE SPAYING OF MILCH COWS. 
455 
with inconvenience: besides, it is not more expeditious than that 
which I have described, because it sometimes happens that the 
ovary escapes from the grasp, and the arm must be once more 
introduced into the belly in order to find it again. 
Two or three days after the operation the wound may be 
dressed. The dressing consists in fomenting around the wound 
two or three times every day, and in hot weather injecting a 
little ol‘ Teau de Labarraque (a solution of chloride of lime). 
A,pledget of tow should be placed daily over the wound itself, 
and the stitches occasionally tightened. The wound will usually 
be quite healed in the space of fifteen days, or three weeks at 
most. 
The cows on which I operated at the request of M, Francillon 
were all attended upon, and the wounds dressed and healed by 
himself: there is, in fact, very little skill requisite in this stage of 
the business. 
From the observations which I have since been enabled to make, 
I should offer the following as the advantages to be expected 
from spaying milch cows. 
1. An increase of at least one-third in the production of milk. 
2. The certainty of having a nearly equal supply at all times. 
3. Escape from all the chances and accidents that accompany 
utero-gestation and parturition. 
4. Escape from the accidents which happen to cows during 
the period of heat, arising from their riding and worrying one 
another, or their being injured by too large a bull. 
5. The disposition to fatten more readily, and to greater extent, 
when their milk begins to fail. 
6. The saving of an expense, often considerable, arising from 
barren cows, and which, in some districts, and on some farms, 
either from the influence of breed or bad management, occurs to 
almost every cow once in two or three years. As an illustration of 
this, I may mention, that, in the neighbourhood of Lausanne 
and Lavaux the farmers are often obliged to change their cows, 
an expense almost ruinous to them. 
liecueily Feb. 1834. 
