CASTRATION OF CRYPTORCHIDS. 
243 
It is important at the outset to accurately determine 
whether the cryptorchidy is on the right side or the left, and 
this can usually be ascertained without difficulty, since the 
animal' may be seen with one testicle free and properly loca¬ 
ted, while the other is entirely concealed, with the corres¬ 
ponding scrotum entirely free from cicatrix, which is the 
positive sign of ectopia. More commonly the visible testicle 
has been removed, while the descent of the other has been 
looked for in vain. In this case the absence of the testicle 
and of the cicatrix of castration in the scrotal region of one 
side, with one retracted, radiating and in continuity with the 
cord on the other, are signs which admit of no doubt in the 
mind of the practiced observer. But it may happen that the 
gelder has attempted or feigned to castrate on the side where 
the testicle was absent in such a way as to produce a more 
or less deep traumatism, and with subsequently a cicatrix. It 
is easy to distinguish this from the true cicatrix; it is elon¬ 
gated, projecting, and not retracted by the stump, of the am¬ 
putated testicular cord. There are other characters by which 
double cryptorchidy may be recognized besides those already 
mentioned, such as the absence of the testicles in scrotal en¬ 
velopes, as well as that of any revealing cicatrix resulting from 
an operation. The question whether the cryptorchidy is in¬ 
guinal or abdominal I view as of little importance, and, like 
Professor Degive, I never think of it before the operation. 
Still, the most careful exploration of the inguinal and abdom¬ 
inal regions, whether by direct palpation or by rectal taxis, 
will not always yield positive data, as I found in my eleventh 
operation upon a ridgling whose left testicle, of the size of a 
hen’s egg, was situated in the sub-lumbar region, a location 
which rectal examination was not competent to establish. 
Mr. Dieriex states that rectal taxis has never enabled him to 
locate the presence of the testicle suspended in the abdomen. 
Mr. Degive affirms nearly the same thing, though he is of 
opinion that “ in some cases it may be possible to feel an ab¬ 
dominal testicle, especially when it is comparatively large 
and sufficiently consistent.” 
