NEUROTOMY. 207 



In all operations, success a good way depends upon circum- 

 stances which are, for the most part, under the control of the 

 medical practitioner. Fitness of subject is the chief of these ; 

 preparation of him is another ; and last, but not least in animals, 

 comes the securing of the subject, and the placing the part to be 

 operated on in that position in which the operator can best exercise 

 his power and judgment. 



Attempts have been made, and are we believe on occasions still 

 made, to perform neurotomy while the horse is standing, using a 

 bistoury in lieu of a scalpel, in a manner we shall hereafter describe. 

 For our own part, however, we advocate casting in all such opera- 

 tions. Let the animal, we say, be cast with hobbles in the usual 

 manner, and let the limb to be operated on be separated and held 

 in a side-line, until it can be brought to be bound down upon a truss 

 of hay, previously covered with a linen cloth, to serve as a sort of 

 operating table. And, in order to afford still greater security and 

 steadiness of the limb so placed during the operation, an assistant, 

 holding a blunt iron hook passed underneath the toe of the shoe, 

 may firmly stay the foot, and keep the limb extended. While 

 this is being done, however, it requires some vigilance on the part 

 of the operator to see that the limb is not drawn into such a false 

 position by over-extension, that, when the incisions come to be 

 made, and the limb in the interim happens to change position, he 

 finds the cut in the skin not opposite, as he expected, to the parts 

 he is seeking for, but to one side of them ; the consequence of 

 which will be, to embarrass him more or less in his future proceed- 

 ings. Therefore, on having the limb placed in position, let the 

 operator take care that no such deviations by dragging or stretch- 

 ing be made as will throw parts in respect to the skin covering 

 them out of their natural positions. Formerly, the part to be cut 

 into used to be shorn of its hair prior to casting. This however is 

 nowadays, perhaps wisely, dispensed with ; the hair not being 

 much in one's way, and the blemish being, for a time, the greater 

 after the wound is healed. 



Prior to commencing the Operation, it will perhaps be as 

 well for the operator to run over in his mind the course and rela- 

 tive situation of the parts about to engage his attention. He will 

 remember that 



