the operation of castrating any animal, particularly horses.
If the operation is to be performed on a colt, he may be gelded at nine or fifteen days old, if the testicles be come down; in regard the sooner he is gelded the better it will be for his growth, shape, and courage; though a horse may be gelded at any age, if proper care is taken in the cure.
The manner of gelding is as follows. The beast being cast down on some soft place, the operator takes the stones between his forefoot and his great finger, and slitting the cod presses the stones forth; then taking a pair of nippers made very smooth, either of steel, box, or brail-wood, he claps the strings of the stones between them, very near to where the stones are set on, and presses them so hard that there may be no flux of blood; then with a thin, drawing, cauterizing iron, tears away the stone. This done, he takes a hard plaster made of rosin, wax, and washed turpentine, well dissolved together, and melts it on the head of the strings; he then tears them, and melts more of the salve, till such time as he has laid a good thickness of it upon the strings.
When this is done to one stone, the nippers are loosened, and the like is done to the other; and the two slits of the cod are then filled with white fat, and the outside of the cod is anointed with hog's grease; and thus they let him rise, and keep him in a warm stable, without tying him up. If he swells much in his cods or sheath, they chafe him up and down, and make him trot for an hour in a day, which soon recovers him.
The manner of gelding a hog is as follows: The operator, after having made two cross slits or incisions on the midst of the stones, presses them out, and anoints the fore with tar. But another general method, yet somewhat more dangerous if not well done, is, first to cut the stone on the top, and after having drawn that one forth, the operator puts in his fingers at the same slit, and with a lancet cuts the skin between the two stones, and by that slit presses out the GEL
Gelée
Gellibrand