NEUROTOMY. 2*23 



to bear any kind or amount of work the owner of the horse chooses 

 to impose upon it, is running in the face of all reason. It is true, 

 horses have hunted, have performed cavalry exercise, have car- 

 ried their riders through long and fast journeys on the road, have 

 done extraordinary work in harness : it is equally true, however, 

 that horses which have been neurotomized have failed from the 

 moment they have been put to any hard work or unusual effort, 

 such having brought on inflammation and suppuration of the feet, 

 followed by casting of the hooves, fracture of the navicular bone, 

 rupture of the long flexor tendon at its place of insertion, &c. 

 These are evils which may not at all times be avoided ; at the 

 same time, we have no right to invite or aggravate them by 

 putting a neurotomized horse to severe or trying work whose foot 

 or feet, though he go sound, are not, from all we can judge from 

 appearances and circumstances, in a condition to bear it. 



Can a Horse that has been subjected to Neurotomy be 

 CALLED Sound ] — "Most certainly, no !" replies our late honoured 

 colleague, Mr. Youatt; and he pertinently adds, " There is 

 altered, impaired structure ; impaired action, and a possibility of 

 the return of lameness at some indefinite period. Let the horse 

 be ever so free from lameness, he has been disabled — he possibly 

 is diseased now ; but the pain which usually accompanies the 

 disease being removed, there are no means by which it (the pre- 

 sumed or supposed disease) can be indicated." So far so good. 

 But let us put the case in a somewhat different light : it may be a 

 strained light, but still such result has happened, and may again 

 happen. Supposing a horse restored to soundness through neuro- 

 tomy ; and supposing he continues to go sound for several years — 

 nay, for life, afterwards ; and supposing satisfactory proof to be 

 given that in the said horse's originally lame and senseless foot 

 the power of feeling can be proved to have returned ; and to this 

 add, that, after the most searching examination, no sign of existing 

 disease is discovered. Is such a horse to be regarded, in the eye 

 of law or equity, as sound or unsound ] We leave the question for 

 the " judges," as well of horses as of law, to determine. 



