CORRESPONDENCE. 
5 8 l 
moment to heartily endorse Prof. Wesley Mills’ remarks on the 
propriety and usefulness of the operation. The public, however, 
demand it, and so far as the writer is concerned, they shall have 
it.” I presume the writer of the paper refers to my views as 
expressed in my work - The Dog in Health and in Disease,” and 
as it might possibly be supposed from the quotation above cited 
that I did consider the operation proper and useful, I wish to 
leave no doubt about a matter in which I hold very decided 
opinions. I therefore crave space for the remarks on page 387 
of my book: “It is impossible to predict what effect on the 
physical and psychic nature of the dog these operations may 
have. After ether the subject may be little more than a use¬ 
less, animated mass of flesh, unworthy the name of ‘ dog.’ The 
author would not allow any dog he owned to be thus operated 
on, nor could he be induced to perform it except when the parts 
are diseased; and he hopes the time is not far distant when every 
reputable veterinary surgeon will take the same view of the 
case, and absolutely refuse to thus run the risk of destroying the 
dog, as a oog, merely to gratify the whim of some owner who 
wishes to shirk his responsibility. Every man should either not 
keep a dog at all or treat the animal as a dog. A spayed or 
castrated dog cannot win a prize on the bench.” 
. My views remain Precisely the same as when the above was 
written. While I see much to admire in the method of perform¬ 
ing the operation as described by Dr. Francis, especially the 
attention to antiseptic details and to anesthesia, I could have 
wished that if the doctor really agrees with the views I have 
published he had shown as much moral courage as candor, and 
made his actions correspond with his convictions ; for so far as I 
can see, it is only when the practitioner does so that he rises 
above the moral level of the quack. 
Wesley Mills, 
Faculty of Com. Med. and Vet. Science , 
McGill University , 
Montreal. 
