248 THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 



a case of depression, or when a small portion of bone has pene- 

 trated the cerebral mass, and the patient is comatose, relief by 

 trephine is almost with absolute certainty calculated on. Hence 

 we advise the readers not to be over-hasty in judging of the 

 value of this surgical operation, until they have satisfied them- 

 selves that the operators were qualified to select suitable subjects 

 for it. For it is only calculated, like many others, to give relief 

 in certain morbid conditions, and at a certain progressive stage 

 of the infirmity. The author's experience, as regards the utility 

 of the operation, is rather limited, he having only performed it 

 in a few isolated cases, and then at the particular request of 

 the subjects' owners. Many horses have been brought to him 

 as subjects for neurotomy, laboring under chronic diseases of 

 the foot, for the cure of which he has preferred other means, 

 with probably better success than might have attended the oper- 

 ation. We have always maintained that in the event of a lame 

 horse being restored to usefulness after being neurotomized, it is no 

 proof that he might not have been restored by less objectionable 

 means. We shall now furnish the reader with some of the views 

 of Professor Percivall, whose works, occupying, as they do, so 

 elevated a position in veterinary literature, are consulted author- 

 itatively. Our quotations must be incomplete, — merely a 

 synopsis, — in consequence of our prescribed limits. 



Mr. Percivall awards the credit of introducing neurotomy into 

 veterinary practice to Surgeon Moorcroft; and to Professor 

 Sewell, he argues, " belongs the credit of practically demonstrat- 

 ing its utility for the removal of foot lameness of a navicular- 

 thritic description ; also as a remedy for the removal of lame- 

 ness in cases where medicine is confessedly powerless, together 

 with the serviceability of neurotomized horses, not for driving 

 only, but for riding, and even for hunting." Mr. Moorcroft's 

 views regarding the operation are learned from a passage which 

 occurs in a letter, communicated by him, eighteen years after his 

 first operation, to the editor of the Calcutta Journal. 



u * * * I recollect not the number of horses operated on 

 by me successfully, though it was somewhat considerable. Some 

 of these were worked by myself; and the general impressions on 

 my mind at this interval are, that horses so operated on, when 



