302 
M. JACOULDT. 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
CASTRATION OF CRYPTORCHIDS. 
By M. Jaooulet. 
Anatomy of the Inguinal and Testicular Regions. 
1. Inguinal Region. By this designation we intend to indi 
cate the fold or hollow extending obliquely downward and in 
ward from the external angle of the ilium to the anterior borde 
of the pubis, separating the inferior abdominal wall from the in 
ternal face of the thigh. 
In tracing this region from the superficial portions to the 
more deeply seated layers, we successively reach: 
First. The scrotum, which is a thin, flexible and elastic skin 
sparsely covered with fine hairs. 
Second. A fibrous, elastic membrane, closely connected witl 
the scrotum, and known as the dartos. 
Third. A layer of cellular tissue, of a more or less dense con 
sistency, in the meshes of which and near the median line, the 
external pudic veins appear. 
Fourth. An oval opening, through and circumscribed by the 
fibres of the aponeurosis of the great oblique muscle. This open 
ing is easily felt through the skin and is known by anatomists as 
the external inguinal ring. 
Fifth. And lastly, we have a muscular aponeurotic space, 
formed by the small oblique muscle against the crural ring. This 
space, which must occupy our special attention, corresponds with 
the inguinal canal of the anatomists. In well and normally 
f 01 med stallions the vaginal sheath forms for it an internal lining, 
which transforms it into a true canal, tubulated in shape, and in 
which the testicular cord passes. But in horses in which the tes¬ 
ticle has not passed outside of the abdomen, and in mares, there 
is, strictly speaking, no canal, and the region offers instead only 
a kind of slit or interstice, filled with a loose connective tissue 
which closes it entirely, and leaves the inguinal blood vessels and 
nerves at its internal border. 
It is this that Mr. Degive has called the inguinal interstice or 
