156 NEUROTOMY. 



if it is neglected palsy soon associates itself with, or succeeds to, the com- 

 plaint ; and the loss of nervous power follows the difficulty or pain of moving. 



Every horseman will recollect cases in which the animal that seemed on the 

 preceding day to be perfectly sound becomes decidedly lame, and limps as 

 though he had lost the use of his limbs ; yet there is no thickening of the ten- 

 dons, nor any external inflammatory action to show the seat of the complaint. 

 Mr. Cooper, of Coleshill, relates a case very applicable to the present subject. 

 A farmer purchased a horse, to all appearance sound, and rode him home a 

 distance of ten miles. He was worked on the two following days, without 

 showing the least lameness. On the third day it was with great difficulty that 

 he managed to limp out of the stable. Mr. Cooper was sent for to examine 

 him. The horse had clean legs and excellent feet. The owner would have 

 him blistered all round. It was done. The horse was turned out to grass for 

 two months, and came up perfectly sound. The weather soon afterwards 

 became wet and cold, and the horse again was lame; in fact, it presently 

 appeared that the disease was entirely influenced by the changes of the atmo- 

 sphere. " Thus," adds Mr. C., "in the summer a horse of this description will 

 be mostly sound, while in the winter he will be generally lame." 



An account of acute rheumatism, by Mr. Thompson, of Beith, is too valu- 

 able to be omitted : " I have had," says he, " fourteen cases of this disease. 

 The muscles of the shoulders and arms were generally the parts affected. The 

 cure was effected in a few days, and consisted of a good bleeding from the jugu- 

 lar, and a sharp purge. 



" One of these cases was uncommonly severe. The disease was in the back 

 and loins. The horse brought forward his hind-legs under his flanks, reached 

 his back, and drew up his flanks with a convulsive twitch accompanied by 

 a piteous groan, almost every five minutes. The sympathetic fever M'as alarm- 

 ing, the pulse was 90, and there was obstinate constipation of the bowels. The 

 horse literally roared aloud if any one attempted to shift him in the stall, and 

 groaned excessively when lying. He was bled almost to fainting ; and three 

 moderate doses of aloes were given in the course of two days. Injections were 

 administered, and warm fomentations were frequently applied to the back and 

 loins. On the third day the physic operated briskly, accompanied by consider- 

 able nausea and reduction of the pulse. From that time the animal gradually 

 recovered. 



" These horses are well fed, and always in good condition ; but they are at 

 times worked without mercy, which perhaps makes them so liable to these 

 attacks/' 



NEUROTOMY. 



To enable the horse to accomplish many of the tasks we exact from him, 

 we have nailed on his feet an iron defence. Without the protection of the shoe, 

 he would not only be unable to travel over our hard roads, but he would speedily 

 become useless to us. While, however, the iron protects his feet from being 

 battered and bruised, it is necessarily inflexible. It cramps and confines the 

 hoof, and often, without great care, entails on our valuable servant bad disease 

 and excessive torture. 



The division of the nerve, as a remedy for intense pain in any part of the 

 frame, was systematically practised by human surgeons more than a century 

 ago. Mr. Moorecroft has the honour of introducing the operation of neurotomy 

 in the veterinary school. 



He had long devoted his powerful energies to the discovery of the causes and 

 the cure of lameness in the fore-foot of the horse. It was a subject worthy of 

 him, for it involved the interest of the proprietor and the comfort of the slave. 



