STRANGULATED HERNIA, ETC. 
131 
The wooden clams are then to be put on, and after adminis¬ 
tering an anodyne draught, the animal is to be released, and 
fastened up in a quiet box or stall, when the treatment will 
be the same as that subsequent to castration. 
1 have just now had tw r o other cases, one in my own corps, 
a trooper, which w r as speedily operated on in the usual way, 
and recovered. The other I was called in to, in consultation 
here in Landour, and pronounced the operation useless, as 
the intestine had been strictured for twenty hours. I was, 
however, assured by the practitioner in attendance, that he 
had reduced the hernia by the taxis, if it had not come down 
again. I found the poor animal down with the unmistakeable 
symptoms of hernia, and a ligature round his scrotum. I 
had him removed to a convenient place, cast, and secured to 
the branch of a tree, and proceeded to perform the hopeless 
operation. About a foot and a half of gut were found in the 
scrotum, tightly strictured and mortified, which distinctly 
proved that, at no time from the first occurrence of the 
accident, had the hernia been reduced. The stricture was 
dilated, and the mortified gut returned, and my prognosis 
was verified by the poor brute dying in about an hour after 
the operation. I must do the practitioner the justice to 
state that he was not called in, I believe, till fifteen hours 
after the accident; but I am fully convinced that, had the 
owner sought medical assistance even a few hours after the 
accident, the animal would have been saved. I am of opinion 
that where strictural hernia is reduced by the taxis, there is 
very little chance of that portion of the gut coming down 
again immediately. It is only in cases where hernia exists 
independent of stricture, that this occurs, and in such cases 
there is no immediate danger. It becomes an inconvenience, 
and an eyesore, and that is all, but life is not endangered 
thereby. In this case, the practitioner in attendance hinted 
at the possibility of hydrocele, but we should remember 
that in hydrocele the tumour is fluctuating, and in strictured 
hernia the cord is exceedingly tense, glistening, and hard, 
and the testicle on that side drawn up tightly towards the 
seat of stricture. 
I was consulted some years ago by an officer at Meerutt, 
whose horse, a valuable Arab, had a tumour nearly as big as 
my head between his legs. The horse was the property of 
Lieutenant Birch, of the Fusiliers. I pronounced him rup¬ 
tured, and arrived at this conclusion from the fact that the 
tumour increased or diminished according to the quantity of 
intestine down at different periods. It was a fearfully danger¬ 
ous case to operate on, and, had I been permitted, I should 
