NEWS AND ITEMS. 
149 
Ovariotomy for Thoroughbred Fillies. —It is claimed 
that thoroughbred fillies from whom the ovaries have been re¬ 
moved will train better, keep in better condition, and be more 
reliable in races. The fillies Duplicate, Terrene, May Be So, 
and Factory Girl, the property of Messrs. Clay & Woodford, 
were recently unsexed, and their careers will be watched with 
interest. If the operation proves successful, it ought to become 
popular, and will eventually benefit the breeding interest by re¬ 
lieving the breeding ranks of many “ weeds.” It would also 
open up a new field for veterinarians. 
Prolific PiGvS.— In times gone by, when fancy points were 
much more highly esteemed in pigs than at the present period, 
the breeding and suckling qualities of the brood sow were 
ignored to such an extent that the terms, pedigree pigs and 
sterile pigs were, to a considerable extent, synonymous terms. 
Not so now in some herds, as Mr. Sanders Spencer, of Holywell 
Manor, can relate numbers of instances of sows in his herd hav¬ 
ing litters of nineteen. At last, one of his sows has broken the 
record with a litter of twenty-five pigs, all alive and as playful 
as kittens. This is an age of progress. 
Dr. F. B. Ackerman, of Brooklyn, has recently been made 
the object of an attack by a disappointed seller of a horse. 
Called to examine a saddle horse for a member of the driving 
club of which he is veterinarian, the animal was condemned. 
The seller proved to be a member of the same club, who became 
incensed at the decision, and called in three other veterinarians, 
who passed the horse as sound, following which the seller pre¬ 
ferred charges against the examiner before the Executive Com¬ 
mittee of the club, who upon investigation found that the doctor 
had given an honest opinion, and dismissed the charges. 
This is a Warm One.— The following is a copy of an ad¬ 
vertisement now running in a Western horse paper (with the 
advertiser’s name concealed): “ Dr. Blank’s Magic Liniment, 
the greatest of all antiseptic wound dressings. Cures barbed 
wire cuts, fistula, piles, eczema, brands, old scars. I will give 
$200 for any horse with barb wire wounds, also scars or blem¬ 
ishes such as are made with the branding iron, that I cannot 
cure and leave surface as if never disturbed. Dr. Blank, Vet¬ 
erinary Oophorectimist^ Charleston, Ill.” [How is that for a 
degree ? The preposterous ass ! Perhaps he thinks like Oth¬ 
ello, “ What wound did ever heal, but by degrees ? ”— S. R. h.] 
Appreciative Veterinarians. —The editors of the 
