CASTRATION OF CRYPTORCHIDS. 
81 
septic micro-organisms by internal medication ? Mr. Degive 
answers in the affirmative, saying “ Before performing the 
castration of a ridgling, I prescribe the following prepara¬ 
tory regimen: good straw, unlimited ; four to five kilograms 
of oats a day ; slightly saline water to drink ; a tablespoonful 
three times a day of a mixture of three hundred grams of 
tincture of arnica, and fifty grams of crystallized phenic acid. 
This regimen is observed for five or six days, with absolute 
diet on the day of the operation.” 
Several of his colleagues, and among them Mr. Jacoulet, 
adhere to the opinion that the previous medical operation is 
altogether useless. Mr. J. has both given and omitted the 
tincture of arnica, without any changes in the febrile reaction 
in his patients. 
“I am somewhat surprised,” says Mr. Degive, “to see such 
appreciation of a preparation which I considered of serious 
importance. I can admit that a healthy patient, free from 
any morbid predisposition, and placed in the best hygienic 
condition, may be successfully operated upon without the 
slighest preparation. But who can be certain that all animals 
will possess such satisfactory conditions, especially those that 
are first seen only at the moment of the operation ?” 
To obviate the many objections which may present them¬ 
selves, either in the constitution of the patient, or in the hy¬ 
gienic agencies to which he has been exposed, I think it pru¬ 
dent to avoid any measures which may prove to be of a seri¬ 
ously objectionable nature, such as feeding with all kinds of 
food indiscriminately, and also to administer agents which are 
likely to diminish the receptivity of the organism for the de¬ 
velopment of germs, or of such factors as are essential to the 
inflammatory and febrile phenomena, which are likely to 
occur after all bloody and delicate operations. 
Tincture of arnica and phenic acid have seemed to me to 
possess this preventive effect, and to their action I attribute 
the ordinary absence of all febrile symptoms in patients on 
which I operate. It is onLy in very exceptional cases that I 
have observed what Mr. Jacoulet refers to, as a rule, in the 
appearance of a severe fever, with great depression, reaching 
