21S 



NEUROTOMY. 



the blade a, at the pleasure of the operator, to be closed, and in 

 being so, after the manner of a pair of scissors, to effect the divi- 

 sion of the nerve. Only the 

 upper half of the blade b, as 

 will be seen by the woodcut, 

 is provided with a cutting 

 edge. 



Between instruments of 

 such different construction, 

 although intended to answer 

 similar purposes, there is no 

 making any comparison. Nor 

 is it needful for us to do so. 

 All that we shall say, in pass- 

 ing any opinion on their 

 merits, is, that in their way 

 both exhibit more than ordi- 

 nary ingenuity in their in- 

 vention, and that the neuro- 

 tomist who takes care to pro- 

 vide himself with one or both 

 of them, will find himself at 

 the moment of operating in 

 the possession of an aid which 

 will much simplify and short- 

 en his undertaking. 



The Union of the 

 DIVIDED Nerves takes place 

 forthwith, provided those nerves are simply cut in two; sensation — 

 and with it lameness — returning in about a month or six weeks : 

 but if a portion of nerve be excised, immediate union is thereby 

 prevented. 



In a series of experiments made on animals by Schwann* to set 



the question of union of nerve at rest, he found that when a 



portion of nerve is removed the restorative process is set up the 



same way as when there has been merely division of a nerve ; 



* On the Local Diseases of Nerves. 



