NEUROTOMY, OR CUTTING THE NERVE 295 



so that no part concerned in the production of motion 

 extends below the knee ; and when the nerve is 

 divided either above the fetlock or on the pastern, not 

 a fibre is touched concerned with motion, but those of 

 feeling alone, and those are continued to the point of 

 the toe. It will be seen therefore that this operation 

 does not at all interfere with motion ; but the sensi- 

 bility or feeling of the foot is taken away, and the 

 poor animal relieved from the torture which diseases 

 of the foot generally cause. By this means the irrita- 

 tion of the foot is relieved, and this in most cases pro- 

 duces an abatement of the inflammation, and the 

 horse will be able to perform work, and have the free 

 use of his foot. 



When horses have inflammatory diseases of the 

 foot, they generally keep beating it on the ground, 

 which not only keej^s up the inflammation, but even 

 increases it, while they frequently destroy the hoof by 

 this constant battering. 



Many persons have supposed that by cutting the 

 nerve, the horse must lose its foot, but it is seldom 

 that sloughing of the hoof results, unless suppuration 

 has been set up in the hoof by a prick with a nail in 

 the act of shoeing the animal. This nerve is con- 

 nected with sensation alone ; those on which the 

 nutrition of the foot depends are the ganglial nerves, 

 which wind round the veins and arteries, even to their 

 most minute branches, and enable them to perform 

 their functions. These cannot be touched in the 

 operation of destroying the nerve of sensation, nor 

 will it in the slightest degree militate against the 

 functions of nutrition. 



I have given a representation of the parts con- 

 nected with the operations of neurotomy, Plate vi, fig. 

 7, and described these parts at page 216. It will be 



