CASTRATION OF THE CRYPTORCHID. 
513 
easily digested food, and the animal is kept in the sling from 
three to four days. 
Should a fever appear, or should the surroundings of the 
wound be wet or swollen, the bandage is removed, the stitches 
at the corners of the wound withdrawn and a sublimate or 
creoline solution irrigation established. The principal danger 
lies in infection and peritonitis, which inaugurate a septicaemia. 
Careful disinfection of all things used in the operation does 
away with this ; and when the hands or instruments come in 
contact with no undisinfected object, there is no reasonable 
ground for fear. . I have noticed that operations performed in 
the country heal oftener without suppuration than those car¬ 
ried out in a hospital; the danger of infection in the owner’s 
stall, provided it be ordinarily clean, is less than the danger of 
hospital gangrene in an institution which is not often and 
fundamentally disinfected. 
Upon the thirteen cryptorchids which were operated on 
last year, I have noted that six cases involved the right, and 
four the left testicle ; in the three last subjected, both organs 
were concealed. The average weight was five drachms; one 
nevertheless weighed four and a half and another seven ounces. 
The two latter were, anatomically, perfectly developed, so 
that no doubt existed concerning the procreative power. 
Eight were removed by ligature and eight by torsion ; the 
first method is certainly without haemorrhage, the last doubt¬ 
fully so; and since blood destroys healing per primam, the 
first is preferable. 
The first patient operated on last year died sixteen days 
after the operation from septicaemia, after the healing of the 
wound up to that time had progressed favorably; this infec¬ 
tion was ascribed to contemporaneous cases of gangrene then 
in the hospital. Another case in which 1 had removed both 
testicles died from the same cause associated with abdominal 
haemorrhage; this case undoubtedly died of septicaemia, but 
since this I have always removed the second testicle only 
after the healing of the wound of the first. 
The sine qua non of the operation is fundamental antiseptis 
and a knowledge of the anatomical dispositions. 
