204 NEUROTOMY. 



tomy will encourage in the tread is calculated to prove of effect in 

 expanding the hoof, and so removing the assumed cause of the 

 lameness : not that this is of much consequence so long as the 

 foot remains devoid of feeling ; but that it may tell remotely to its 

 advantage, supposing the foot after a time to recover its sensibility. 

 There have been many instances of horses that have been neuroto- 

 mized on account of lameness continuing to go sound, even after 

 the demonstrated return of feeling in consequence of the re-union 

 of the nervous trunks, and the case of contraction in question may 

 be classed among such permanent restorations. The annexed case 

 affords a good example of the result of severing the nerves in con- 

 traction : — 



In November 1828, a black mare> the property of Mr. Buss, of 

 the George-inn, Bedford, went extremely lame from contraction in 

 both fore feet. She could not, from pain, bear to stand up in 

 her stable even sufficiently long to take her requisite food. Mr. 

 Rickwood operated on her, confining his operation to one nerve in 

 each leg. When the wounds were healed she was taken back 

 to work, and proved as useful as any sound horse; continuing now 

 to stand the same time as other horses, and doing her work as 

 well. — Veterinarian, vol. iii, p. 213. 



The preceding Cases will suffice to shew, that, for lameness 

 in the foot, coronet, or pastern, incurable or unrelievable by thera- 

 peutic means ; for navicularthritis and its consequences ; for the 

 effects of chronic coronitis and laminitis, barring sunk soles ; for 

 ossified cartilages, for ringbone, for contraction, the operation of 

 neurotomy is especially applicable, and to such has been for the 

 most part confined. Nor will those practitioners who regard their 

 own credit, or that of the operation, feel desirous of extending 

 much, for lameness at least, its sphere of appliancy. In no part of 

 the body do we possess equal power over the nerves supplying 

 sensation as we do over the — isolated or rather peninsulated — foot. 

 Two nervous trunks, one running on either side of the pastern, 

 form the sole communication between it and the brain, and these 

 trunks take subcutaneous courses, wherein they are readily acces- 

 sible to the knife. Most other parts and organs of the body derive 

 their nerves from various surrounding sources, from below as well 



