578 
COW-SPAYING. 
“ a fair trial ; 55 but it has not obtained from him, what it 
equally deserves, a full and impartial narrative of the effects 
resulting from it. All the six cows were spayed during the 
autumn of 1859 by Mr. Gamgee, in the course of two weeks 
or so. They belonged to one proprietor, and were valuable 
and healthy animals in milk, their ages being from four years 
and upwards. A very intelligent and skilful veterinary sur¬ 
geon (Mr. Balfour, from Kirkcaldy) was present at one of 
the operations, and witnessed Mr. Gamgee’s proceedings— 
the introduction of his hand into the vagina, and the employ¬ 
ment of a knife and forceps, with the latter of which the 
ovaries were brought away, much broken down, as Mr. 
Gamgee explained. I shall now 7 state the effects of the 
spaying upon these six cow 7 s, as Mr. Gamgee has not thought 
proper to give any details whatever of his nineteen cases, but 
has lumped them all together in the most summary way. He 
says he has tested the operation, but as he has kept the 
special result to himself no man can make head or tail of his 
operative proceedings. He affirms, at page 253 of his ‘Dairy 
Stock Treatise,’ that Charlier’s method of operating, w 7 hich he 
follows, i( had always the advantage of efficacy and absence 
of danger, which are the great requisites/ 5 
All the six cows fell off, both in milk and condition, after 
the operation, and not one of them continued in the same 
thriving state they were in before it. None of the cows died 
immediately from the operation, but they were all sold in 
about three months subsequent to being operated upon, it 
being considered best to dispose of them, as they w r ere not 
thriving. So far, therefore, as the operation w T as concerned, 
in place of doing good, it turned out a failure in every 
instance. One of the cows w T hich had thriven w T orst fell 
dow 7 n three weeks after the operation, and could not rise 
again; not being able to w 7 alk, it w 7 as taken aw'ay and slaugh¬ 
tered. Other two of them, not improving, w r ere sold for the 
flesh-market in the neighbourhood six weeks after the 
operation. Other two w 7 ere sold in Edinburgh, and the sixth 
one also was parted with, for it came regularly a bulling , so 
that the operation, always premising that it was skilfully per¬ 
formed, was not only a failure, but even did not act, as he 
asserts it does, in preventing one of the mutilated cows 
from coming in season. In three months the byre required 
to be replenished by a new 7 stock of milkers; but I feel certain 
that their organs of reproduction, as well as their secretion of 
milk, will be left to the operation of natural laws, and be pro¬ 
tected from such unprofitable experiments, as the results of 
the operation performed by Mr. Gamgee have proved cow- 
