COW-SPAYING. 
o77 
recommendation, to quote liis own words, that •'• under the 
head milk, the author has considered particularly the circum¬ 
stances which lead to its deterioration ” The effect of town- 
dairy milk on the human body, and particularly on infants, is 
not denied, and I can attest from personal experience the 
great difference in quality of country over town-made butter. 
In 1857 a paper appeared in the October number of the 
f Highland Society’s Transactions, 5 by Mr. Gamgee, in which 
he advocates (referring to evidence from foreign authorities) 
the advantages of spaying dairy cows. In that article, at 
page 102, he states he has “ procured the necessary instru¬ 
ments from Paris, and am engaged in testing practically the 
truth of all that has been asserted, in the hope in time to have 
occasion to report on the advantages of spaying dairy cows 
in Edinburgh and other British towns/ 5 The results of some 
of the operations performed by Mr. Gamgee, in Edinburgh 
and Glasgow, are well known, and are, I believe, unfavorable 
for the cow-spaying practice; but it is beyond my province 
to speak of them. Still I am at a loss to know, as he has 
stated, “ that it is very likely in country dairies the opera¬ 
tion will not answer ; 55 why, he selected cows in a country 
steading near Burntisland to experiment upon. In the chap¬ 
ter on cow-spaying, in his treatise referred to, which is a 
reprint of his paper in the Society 5 s journal, he says, at 
page 260:—“Since then (that is, in 1857) I have tested the 
operation as occasion presented itself, and am fully convinced 
of its importance for dairy cows kept in large towns, and, 
under certain circumstances, for cows even in the country, 
such as very lean and abundantly milking cows. 55 lie tells 
his readers that he has operated on nineteen cows, and that 
“one alone has been at all unwell after the third day. 55 This 
cow died, but he believes not from the consequences of the 
operation, but from pleuro-pneumonia. As he neither men¬ 
tions the day on which the cow died after the operation, the 
symptoms of the affection from which she died, nor the 
appearances on dissection, the case is worthless and unillus- 
trative on the incidence of the subject atissue, for, without 
questioning his opinion, the matter is still left open for dis¬ 
pute how far purulent effusions in the chest are referable to 
operative lesions in the generative organs. I presume that 
Mr. Gamgee must include the six cases operated on by him 
in the immediate neighbourhood where I practise, for all the 
particulars of which I can adduce undoubted proofs, and 
hold myself personally responsible for their truth and cor¬ 
rectness. I shall therefore give what he promised—the 
results, as the operation received what he says it deserves, 
xxxiv. 44 
