NEUROTOMY. 4(59 



however, is the least painful to the horse, and more perfectly secures 

 the proper elevation and straight direction of the tail. 



The dock should not, for the first three or four days, be brought higher 

 than the back. Dangerous irritation and inflammation would probably be 

 produced. It may, after that, be gradually raised to an elevation of forty- 

 five degrees. The horse should be taken out of the pulleys, and gently 

 exercised once or twice every day ; but the pulleys cannot finally be dis- 

 pensed with until a fortnight after the wounds have healed, because the 

 process of contraction, or the approach of the dirided parts, goes on for 

 some time after the skin is perfect over the incisions, and the tail would 

 thus sink below the desired elevation. 



If the tail has not been unnecessarily extended by enormous weights, no 

 bad consequences will usually follow ; but if considerable inflammation 

 should ensue, the tail must be taken from the pulley and dihgently 

 fomented with simple warm water, and a dose of physic given. Locked- 

 jaw has in some rare instances followed, under which the horse generally 

 perishes. In order to prevent the hair from coming ofi", it should be un- 

 plaited and combed out every fourth or fifth day. 



NEUEOTOMY. 



The division of the nerve, as a remedy for intense pain in any part of 

 the frame, was systematically practised by human surgeons more than a 

 century ago. Mr. Moorecroft has the honour of introducing the operation 

 of neuji'otomy in the veterinary school. 



He frequently met with a strangely formidable disease, in what was 

 called 'cofiin-joint lameness,' but to which Mr. James Turner afterwards 

 gave the very appropriate name of ' navicular-joint disease.' It was 

 inflammation of the navicular bone, where the tendon plays over that 

 bone ; and it was accompanied by pain, abrasion, and gradual destruction 

 of these parts. 



For a long time he was foiled in every attempt which he made to 

 remove or even to alleviate the disease. At length he turned his thoughts 

 to the probability of subduing the increased sensibility of the part by 

 diminishing the proportion of nervous influence distributed on the foot. 

 He laid bare one of the metacarpal nerves, and divided it vrith a pair of 

 scissors. There was always an immediate and decided diminution of the 

 lameness, and, sometimes, the horse rose perfectly sound. This happy 

 result, however, was not always permanent, for the lameness returned after 

 the lapse of a few weeks, or on much active exertion. He next cut out a 

 small piece of the nerve. The freedom from lameness was of longer 

 duration, but it eventually returned. 



He then tried a bolder experiment. He excised a portion of the nerves 

 going both to the inner and outer metacarpals. "We transcribe his own 

 account of the result of the first case of complete neurotomy — excision of 

 the nerve on both sides of the leg — that ever was performed. 



' The animal, on rising, trotted boldly and without lameness, but now 

 and then stumbled with the foot operated on. The wounds healed in a 

 few days, and the patient was put to grass. Some weeks afterwards a 

 favourable account was received of her soundness ; but she was soon 

 brought again to us, on account of a large sore on the bottom of the foot 

 operated on, and extending fi-om the point of the frog to the middle and 

 back part of the pastern. The mare, in galloping over some broken glass 

 bottles, had placed her foot upon a fragment of the bottom of one of them, 

 and which had cut its way through the frog and tendon into the joint, and 

 stuck fast in the joint for some seconds, while the animal continued its 

 course apparently regardless of injury. The wound bled profusely, but 



