210 NEUROTOMY. 



The Operation in itself, to a veterinarian acquainted with the 

 anatomy of the parts we have been examining, and whose hand is 

 at all practised in operations of the kind, is any thing but complex 

 or difficult. With the limb properly placed, and the security of 

 it such as will not admit, from struggling, of any material derange- 

 ment of its position, and with a twitch on the animal's nose, the 

 operator commences by making his 



Incision through the Skin. — Supposing neurotomy to be 

 for lameness in the foot, which is the case of ordinary occurrence, 

 it is \\\e plantar nerve that becomes the subject of operation; and 

 the place for many reasons found most convenient for its division 

 is upon the pastern. The first of these reasons may be stated to 

 be, that, when the seat of lameness is, as it commonly is, the 

 navicular joint, the division of the nerve at this site answers the 

 end required, while it leaves, uncut off, sensation in the anterior 

 parts of the foot. The second is, since a horse never cuts or 

 bruises his pastern, he will not strike either the wound that is 

 made, or any tubular enlargement upon the end of the divided 

 nerve that may follow the operation. The third, that the nerve is 

 pretty well as accessible here as upon the fetlock ; a situation in 

 which the performance of the operation is amenable to one, if not 

 to both, of the objections just mentioned. 



The pastern, then, being the part chosen for the operation, the 

 operator, either with his knife or bistoury, proceeds to business. 

 The old-fashioned mode of proceeding is to make an incision with 

 a scalpel directly down upon the nerve ; and for my own part I do 

 not think, taking all matters into consideration, that this mode has 

 been improved upon. There certainly is no occasion to make so 

 lengthy an incision as formerly used to be made ; in fact, the smaller 

 the incision the better : at the same time, unless some sufficient 

 opening is made in the skin, the operator will find himself trou- 

 bled, first, in getting hold of the nerve when divided; and, secondly, 

 in dragging any length of it out (through such a confined 

 aperture as is made by a bistoury) to excise the requisite por- 

 tion. Prior to making his incision, let him trace with his fingers 

 the border of the united flexor tendons in their course along the 

 pastern, and at a place immediately below the head of the pastern, 



