CHAPTEK VII. 



OPERATIONS ON MUSCLES AND THEIR 

 ANNEXES. 



CAUDAL IHYOTOMY. 



This operation, more commonly known under the name of 

 pricking, is exclusively performed on equiaes, and is designed to 

 diminish the power of contraction of certain of the muscles of the 

 tail. However it originated, it has been perpetuated by a class of 

 horse fanciers who have, to a certain extent, made it a dictum of 

 fashion, and by whom it has been supposed to improve the 

 symmetry of the animals upon which it is inflicted But it has 

 lost, in oirr day, much of the estimation in which it was once 

 held, and whUe at first, before its prestige had been weakened, all 

 kinds of horses, indifferently, became victims to the bad taste 

 and thoughtless cruelty of the custom, either the external form of 

 our horses and the mode of attachment of their tails have been 

 improved by more skillful methods of breeding, or they have in- 

 stinctively learned the regulation style of carrying their caudal 

 extremities. Whatever may be the cause, the fact is beyond 

 dispute that the indications for the operation have considerably 

 diminished. 



But though the effect of the division of the inferior caudal 

 muscles is in fact, with some animals, to cause them to carry 

 their tails in lines more graceful and more horizontal than before, 

 it is still necessary, in order to accomplish a successful result, 

 that the tail should be properly attached to the body as a con- 

 genital arrangement, or well set up on the sacrum. A horse 

 with an obHque sacrum, with the tail set low and close to the 

 ischial tuberosities, can never be a good subject for the operation, 

 or made to serve as a favorable example of the beautifying effect 

 of pricking. 



But with all this, there is sometimes a condition which (look- 

 ing not to the welfare of the horse, but solely to the conveniences 



