THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 249 



they did not again become lame, were more apt to stumble with 

 the limb operated than with the other, and that this mode of treat- 

 ment was likely to be more usefully applicable to coach horses 

 than to horses intended for single harness or for the saddle. 



" The remote Effects from Neurotomy looked for. — Whether 

 the nutritive and secretory functions of the foot, deprived of 

 nervous power, would proceed as before ; and, further, what dif- 

 ference neurotomy might make in the animal's action or tread 

 upon the ground. Moorcroft had observed that, under the loss 

 of nervous energy, ' the repairing powers of the foot were not in- 

 jured so far as they depended upon the action of blood vessels ; ' 

 and subsequent experience has confirmed this observation. In- 

 flammation appears to be the same process on a senseless as it is 

 on a sensitive foot, and the secretion of horn goes on as well in 

 one as in the other: the grand and important difference between 

 the two is, that, supposing the neurotomized foot to receive a 

 prick or bruise, and inflammation and suppuration to follow, 

 matter may collect and burrow underneath the sole or frog, or 

 other part, and the horse, incapable of feeling any hurt in his 

 foot, can of course give no intimation of mischief, by showing 

 pain or lameness to his groom or master ; and consequently, un- 

 less the latter should detect the evil himself, suppuration -may 

 proceed to that extent to cause the hoof to separate and be cast 

 off the foot — a catastrophe which has happened more than once, 

 and one that has been brought forward as a fearful argument 

 against the practice of neurotomy. A neurotomized horse may 

 receive a stab, in being shod, from a nail taking a wrong direction, 

 or he may pick up a nail on the road, and no intimation what- 

 ever of the injury be given, unless his farrier or groom happen 

 to discover it. Such accidents, however, are not of every day's 

 occurrence, neither are they, in the hands of expert farriers and 

 careful grooms, likely to happen without their knowledge, and 

 therefore have no right to be regarded in the light of arguments 

 against neurotomy, further than such hazard, remote though it 

 may be, tends to the diminution of such horse's value in the 

 market." 



Mr. Percivall decides that " neurotomy not only destroys the 

 safeguards of the foot, but the horse does not maintain the same 



