ON CASTRATION BY THE CLAMS. 
By Mr. J. C. Ralston, V . S. Madras Cavalry . 
To the Editors of “ The Veterinarian. ” 
When I addressed to you, gentlemen, the communication 
which appeared in The Veterinarian for January, I expressed 
myself desirous not to avow myself a contributor to that useful 
work, until I had conceived myself to have communicated on 
some subjects sufficiently useful to encourage me to desire that 
honour ; but I find you have already set me down on your list. 
N'importe : I must now only endeavour to fulfil, avowedly, what 
I had intended to essay anonymously. Your printer has, how¬ 
ever, fallen into an error which I must request you to correct; 
for though I may presume, on some future occasion, to speak of 
the department , in reference to veterinary surgeons in the Com¬ 
pany’s service in India, it would be somewhat more than pre¬ 
sumptuous to speak of the deportment , which is the word your 
printer has substituted for the other in my last communication. 
In my present communication, I do not imagine 1 am addressing 
you on a subject in any way original or new; but I am induced 
to submit a few practical directions for the use of the clams , in 
castrating, from which the practice may be readily followed ; 
and to bring forward my testimony, as far as it goes, in favour 
of that mode of operating, under many circumstances. In this 
country the usual mode is sufficiently successful, in general, be¬ 
cause horses are castrated, mostly, so young; but in the adult 
and older horse, I should ever infinitely prefer to operate by the 
clams. Why ? Because in the older animal the vessels are en¬ 
larged, and more difficult to securely seal by the heated iron; 
and because I think the tendency to constitutional irritation less, 
and the liability to inflammation extending to the peritoneum 
not so great as when the latter mode is adopted. I shall not, to 
convince, attempt reasoning on this point; but content myself with 
simply stating a well-known fact—that, in the common opera¬ 
tion, old horses have frequently been lost, and that the result of 
it is always, with them, viewed, in a degree, as hazardous ; while, 
in India, I have castrated a great many horses from four years 
of age upwards, and never lost a horse, or had an unfavour¬ 
able symptom : and I have known a very great many operated on 
by others, and have no rocollection of, at any time, hearing of a 
fatal, or even an untoward result. In India, as I apprehend is 
generally known, the horses in the regiments of cavalry.are in¬ 
variably stallions, save such as have been castrated for some par- 
