ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON COW-SPAYING. 91 
both in milk and condition. The falling off was not to the same 
degree as in the other six cows; a circumstance readily ac¬ 
counted for, that some cows, from strength of constitution, 
are more able to resist the shock of the operation, and they 
were therefore kept longer on before being disposed of, but 
the manager—a highly respectable and most intelligent 
and experienced person—informed me that the flesher to 
whom they were sold complained that the value of the ani¬ 
mals was greatly deteriorated and the flesh injured by an 
enlarged and diseased growth which he found within them, 
attached to the parts operated upon, after they were slaugh¬ 
tered. What the nature of the morbid enlargement was, I 
do not pretend to say, but the flesher stated it was of great 
size, and its seat was connected with the organ to which tor¬ 
sion had been applied. The diseased parts were unsaleable; 
and if it had been known when the cows were bought he 
would have hesitated purchasing them in that state. 
By pregnant cows Mr. Gamgee states, on Mr. Charlier's 
estimate, the great loss is simply “ by the calf and its enve¬ 
lopes ; ” but it appears that a greater loss may accrue from 
diseased growths occasioned by spaying. 
The cases I have detailed, l believe, will satisfy every un¬ 
prejudiced mind that cow-spaying, as practised by Mr. 
Gamgee, is both a useless and unprofitable proceeding—that 
it lessens, in place of augmenting the secretion of milk— 
injures instead of improving the condition of the cows ope¬ 
rated on—is occasionally attended with structural derangement 
and enlargement in the lacerated organs—and does not prevent 
cestromania. It is, indeed, very questionable whether the 
excited state of the ovaries mav not be rather the effect than 
«/ 
the cause of oestromania, and that its seat may be in the other 
organs of generation, and occasionally caused by tumours and 
warts in these, which spaying cannot remove. The spaying, 
as performed by Mr. Gamgee, did not act as a preventive in 
all the cows, for in one of the six cases referred to by me the 
cow came and continued regularly a bulling, but what is more 
remarkable, it did not even destroy the generative process of 
a cow operated on by him in Glasgow, as reported to me on 
good authority, for the animal got to the bull, and a bull calf 
was found within her after she was slaughtered. If such was 
the case—and I have no reason to doubt it was not so— 
it is clear that both ovaries had not been removed. As an 
operation, spaying by internal incision and ovarian torsion de¬ 
serves to be condemned, not less of its being an utterly useless 
and highly injurious one, independently that it is very ex¬ 
pensive on account of the high fee which is charged, besides 
