86 
W. E. E. MILLER. 
amount of the bruised tissue to slough off and discharge from 
the wounds, thus necessarily prolonging the time of recovery or 
endangering the patient to blood-poison, from the detention of 
the broken down material or confined pus. 
The, third, ligation of the cords or of the whole scrotal sac, 
including the testicles, is in my opinion the most painful of all, 
this consists in tying a strong cord around the spermatic cords 
with its coverings, or around the whole scrotal sac. This is 
allowed to remain until all the sensations are destroyed and the 
testicles have lost their vitality, and death of the tissue confined 
occurs, when the entire body sloughs off. This method was fol¬ 
lowed by many operators (especially in the castration of sheep), 
but in late years has been almost entirely abandoned, owing to 
the extreme pain inflicted. 
The next, or scraping of the cord, has many adherents and 
advocates at the present day, and is successfully employed in 
bulls and sheep. 
This operation consists in exposing the testicles, and with a 
blunt instrument or dull knife, scrape the spermatic cord and its 
contents until it is severed, the scraping of the cord causes the 
blood to coagulate in the vessels from being bruised and haem¬ 
orrhage soon ceases; this method is very easily performed, and 
may be well considered, inasmuch as it is accomplished with 
very little unnecessary pain. 
The next, or that of distention or breaking off the cords, is a 
very common method of operating at this time among the lower 
order of animals, such as bulls, rams, dogs, cats, etc., and in my 
opinion is the best and most desirable mode of operating, and is 
attended with fewer complications than any other; this method, 
however, does not seem to work well in stallions, as peritonitis 
almost invariably follows it. I think this is due to the fact that 
the stallion is endowed with more vascularity in those parts than 
other animals, and is, therefore, more susceptible to peritonitis.. 
I have experimented with this method on several horses, and 
have nearly always had peritonitis to follow, while on the contrary,. 
I do not know of ever having lost a bull, goat, sheep, or dog 
