CASTRATION. 
CASTRATION. The gelding of male animals 
and the spaying of females, so as to deprive both 
of their power of reproduction. Emasculation, 
or the castrating of male animals, is a very an- 
cient practice, and approves itself to all civilized 
nations as a most powerful means of modifying 
both the temper and the physical constitution. 
A castrated horse, though deprived of the great 
strength and the lofty bearing of his natural 
character, is deprived also of its ungovernable- 
ness and furor; and he becomes similar to the 
mare in mildness and docility, loses his liability 
to several serious diseases, acquires many and 
thorough adaptations to the uses of man, and— 
except for the one purpose of propagating his 
species—is at least ten times more valuable than 
if he had not been castrated. “It certainly,” re- 
marks Delabere Blaine, “is very poetical to la- 
ment the degradation of this noble animal; but 
the finest flight of imagery on one’s tomb, after 
being worried to death by a stallion, would not 
repay the loss of riding through life on a temper- 
ate gelding.” Equally obvious advantages, though 
of a different kind, result from the castrating of 
male calves, male lambs, and male swine. 
The colt of the common farm-horse is, in most 
instances, at the fittest time for castrating when 
in his fourth or fifth month ; but other colts may 
be best castrated at ages ranging from four 
months to eighteen, according to their breed, 
their health, and the purposes for which they are 
destined. Any season of temperate heat, dry 
weather, and freedom from the attacks of flies is 
suitable; and this, in general, can be best com- 
manded late in spring or early in autumn. The 
operation, except in extraordinary circumstances; 
ought to be performed only by a veterinary sur- 
geon. Theold and still most common method is 
to open both sides of the scrotum, to cut off the 
testicles, and apply the cautery. Another and 
brutal method, called twitching, is to make a 
tight ligature round the bag between the tes- 
ticles and the belly, and to allow this to remain 
till, as a consequence of the stoppage of the cir- 
culation and the death of the parts, the testicles 
drop off. A third method is simple excision of 
the testicles; but this tends to send inflamma- 
tory action into the abdomen, and to induce 
fatal peritonitis. A fourth and new method, 
likely to come speedily into general practice, is 
called the operation of torsion: an incision is 
made into the scrotum; the vas deferens is ex- 
posed and divided; the artery is seized, and 
twisted six or seven times round, with a pecu- 
liarly formed pair of forceps; and, when the for- 
ceps are withdrawn, the coils continue on the 
artery, no blood flows, the testicle is removed, 
and no sloughing or other danger ensues. 
The most suitable time for castrating male 
calves is early in the second month; and a time 
nearly as suitable may be found at any period 
thence till the close of the third month. An old 
mode was simply to make a tight ligature with 
CASUARINA. 027 
whipcord round the scrotum, till the parts mor- 
tified and either were cut away or dropped off. 
The mode now commonly practised, is to start 
each testicle through an incision of its covering, 
to tie a ligature round the connecting blood-ves- 
sels so as to stop the circulation, and to detach 
the started testicles by such a division of the cord 
that the part of it which remains may immedi- 
ately retract into the scrotum. A barbarous 
modification of this method is to seize the started 
testicle, and pull it with sufficient violence to 
break asunder the connecting cord. “It is cer- 
tain,” remarks Youatt, “that when a blood-vessel 
is thus ruptured, it forcibly contracts, and very 
little bleeding follows; but if the cord breaks 
high up and retracts into the belly, considerable 
inflammation has occasionally ensued, and the 
beast has been lost. This tearing of the cord 
may be practised on smaller animals, as pigs, or 
lambs, or rabbits; the vessels are small, and there 
is but little substance to be torn asunder; but 
even there the knife, somewhat blunt, will be a 
more surgical and humane substitute.” The me- 
thod by torsion is likely to come into as speedy 
and general use with calves as with colts. 
The most suitable tinie for castrating male 
lambs is as soon as the testicles can be laid hold 
of, or from the tenth till the fourteenth day. No 
one week or day of the season should be set apart 
for the purpose; but on every third or second or 
even successive day, as many lambs should be 
operated upon as are of the proper age. The 
usual method of the operation has been already 
hinted, and does not need to be explained. A 
nasty practice of many shepherds—one which 
even Hogg recommends—is to separate the cord 
with the teeth ; and this, besides being both abo- 
minable and cruel, may be easily superseded by 
the use of a blunt knife. In some years, an al- 
most unaccountable mortality follows the castrat-_ 
ing of lambs; and the following precautions are 
suggested by Hogg, as the result of his extensive 
observation and experience :—“ Care should be 
taken that it be performed at a time when the 
air is free of electrical fire. Heating of them, 
too, is often very fatal; and the operator must, 
by all means, abstain from spirituous liquors. 
When the lambs are very fat and strong, some 
farmers anoint the two vacuities in the scrotum 
with oil of turpentine; one standing with a vial, 
and anoints with a feather every lamb before it 
is set away. This is a severe remedy, but it isa 
sure one, as it repels the effects of the electrical 
matter on the inflamed parts. It, however, stops 
the growth of the lambs for a fortnight; there- 
fore, if the folds are clean around, the weather 
not sultry, and the lambs gently used, there is no 
great risk without it.”—Blaine’s Veterinary Art. 
—Youatt on the Horse——Clater’s Cattle Doctor.— 
Youatt on Cattle—Mackenzte on Sheep —Hogg on 
Sheep. 
CASUARINA. A genus of small, ornamental, 
evergreen trees, of the amentaceous order. It 
