CASTRATION OF SOLIPEDS. 
477 
my token of appreciation of the unstinted aid and support I 
have had during the past six months from my fellow officers, 
and to commend our members in general for their steadfast 
adherence to the best interests of the profession. I thank 
you for your kind attention. 
NOTES ON THE CASTRATION OF SOLIPEDS. 
By Thomas B. Rodgers, D.V.S., Woodbury, N. J. 
(A paper read before the Pennsylvania State Veterinary Medical Association.) 
The essayist desires to state at the outset that the opinions 
herein expressed are the results of his individual experience 
and are given free from envy, hatred and all uncharitableness. 
The operation of castration is a very simple one; it in¬ 
volves (in most cases) little anatomical knowledge, it is at¬ 
tended by a low rate of mortality (about one per cent.), yet 
when I say to you that it is an operation to be approached 
with more misgivings than any other operation in surgery, I 
know that I express the opinion of all of you who have had 
an extensive surgical experience. When you perform a 
neurotomy, a tarsal tenotomy, or excise an arytenoid carti¬ 
lage for the relief of roaring, you are operating on animals 
rendered more or less worthless by disease, the owner is pre¬ 
pared to take the chances of failure or of death, and a neat 
and successful operation redounds to your credit. Far dif¬ 
ferent are the circumstances under which you perform castra> 
tion ; your patient is necessarily in the bloom of health and 
usually in the flower of youth ; his owner may have great, 
possibly extravagant expectations about what the colt will do 
when he develops; he has considered whether he shall confide 
the patient to you or to some itinerant gelder of repute, and 
has perhaps given the diplomaed veterinarian the preference 
despite the opinions of all the long-eared Solons in his neigh¬ 
borhood. Failure means loss of professional credit; success 
represents no gain, for perhaps on the adjoining farm the 
quack’s operation turned out as successfully as yours. The 
age usually selected in my country for the performance of 
