THE CASTRATING ECRASEUR. 
37 
In this great and progressive country we do not receive 
either the support or encourgement of the Government; conse¬ 
quently every man has to rely on his own oars, and he who 
makes the most progress and is the most successful carries the 
palm; thus we find it useless to rely on the practices and ap - 
pliances in surgery as well as in medicine, set down in the 
books and often lectured upon in the colleges, but which prove 
to be unsuccessful in the treatment of cases. What is the use of 
going over and over again the same course of treatment, ^hen 
we know before we commence that it will be unsuccessful ? But 
because it is laid down as a rule it must not consequently be 
deviated from. This, I am sorry to say, is a great failing of the 
English practitioners. They think and believe they know it all; 
the result is there is little or no progression in them. 
A man calling himself Farmer Miles travels from this country 
to England, carrying in his coat pocket one of our old castrat¬ 
ing ecraseurs, and imposes it upon the veterinarians over there 
as a new invention of his for castrating, because he has heard 
that the Britishers have not yet commenced to use that which 
with us is very old, but that they are still practising the bar¬ 
barous methods of burning and clamping as in years gone by. 
The castrating ecraseur which Farmer Miles has exhibited to 
the English veterinarians was first suggested to me by Dr. B. 
Jennings, of Philadelphia, but now of Detroit, Michigan. This 
was seventeen years ago, at which time we made a drawing of 
the instrument now used, and of which we had two made by a 
surgical instrument maker in Philadelphia. 
At the first meeting of the United States Veterinary Medical 
Association, held at the Aston House, in New York City, Dr. 
Jennings introduced this instrument to the members, and spoke 
of the advantages derived from its use in castrating, but as many 
of them did not seem to appreciate, or were otherwise afraid to 
use it, it did not come into general use for several years after¬ 
wards, but from that date to the present I and also Dr, Jen¬ 
nings have continued to use it, and have, during all these years, 
castrated thousands of animals of all ages, without an accident 
or the loss of a single one; and it must be borne in mind that 
during this period a considerable number of these animals were 
cryptorchus. 
About ten or twelve years ago I had a number of these 
instruments manufactured, and sold them to parties in various 
parts of the States. Ten years ago I furnished a gentleman 
friend of mine with one of the instruments, in order that he 
might castrate his own stock, he being a large stock raiser and 
owner of a large farm in Illinois. He has used it up to the 
present time, castrating many thousand head of stock during 
