CASTRATION OF THE COW. 
411 
cular wall at one stroke, and only large enough to admit of the 
passage of one arm, Charlier recommended the incision of the 
skin, then, layer by layer, of the abdominal muscles, making the 
opening large enough for the passage of both of the arms, claim¬ 
ing it as more expeditious, using both hands to extract the ovaries, 
less fatiguing, safer, and injuring the broad ligament and con¬ 
nections less, while the wound healed as quickly as the shorter 
one. lie tore or twisted the ovaries off after breaking the ovarian 
ligaments, which is the method still used by the many gelders and 
spayers that are now traveling over our country. As to the in¬ 
cision, I believe that most of these latter make it on the left side, 
and large enough to admit one arm. The pain in this mode of 
operating is very great and acts sensibly upon the organism of the 
animal, increasing the fever and diminishing, in consequence, the 
secretion of the milk when it does not result in death. The 
symptoms following, are like those which will be presently given 
in describing the vaginal method of operating, but much more 
aggravated, the animal being sick fully twice as long, with the 
addition of the symptoms peculiar to the external wound, which 
are, about the third day, tumefaction, and great tenderness with 
organization of plastic lymph between its lips. 
The accidents following the operation by the incision of the 
flank are principally: emphysema in the external wound, hem¬ 
orrhage in this wound, prolonged reactional fever, suppuration 
of the wound, hemorrhage from the ovarian arteries, peritonitis, 
return of the rut in the animal. 
The emphysema is the most ordinary but least grave of the 
preceding complications. It appears immediately, or a few hours 
after operating, in the form of a diffuse tumefaction, variable in 
extent, sometimes reaching the shoulders and back, and even the 
opposite side of the body. It is supposed to originate from the 
expulsion, through the wound, of air which was taken into the 
abdominal cavity at the time of operating, by the action of the 
diaphragm. This air spreading in the sub-cutaneous cellular tissue 
may dissipate itself, or the skin may be punctured and the air 
pressed out. 
The next complication, hemorrhage from the wound in the 
