no THE HORSE. 



should be carefully examined, and every wound, and even the slightest 

 scratch, well burned with the lunar caustic (nitrate of silver), and the scab 

 should be removed and the operation repeated on the third day. The hot 

 iron does not answer so well, and other caustics are not so manageable. 

 In the spring of 1827, four horses were bitten near Hyde Park, by 

 a mad dog*. To one of them the lunar caustic was severely and twice 

 applied — he lived. The red hot iron was unsparingly used on the 

 others, and they died. The caustic must reach every part of the wound. 

 At the expiration of the fourth month, the horse may be considered to be 

 safe. 



NEUROTOMY, OR CUTTING THE NERVE. 



To enable the horse to accomplish many of the tasks we exact from him, 

 we have nailed on his feet an iron defence. Without the shoe, he woidd 

 not only be unable to travel over our hard roads, but he would speedily 

 become useless to us. While, however, the iron protects his feet from 

 being battered and bruised, it is necessarily inflexible. It cramps and 

 confines the hoof, and, without great care, entails on our valuable servant 

 disease and torture. 



Among the different modes of palliating or removing the extreme pain, 

 veterinary surgeons have lately resorted to the division of the nerve which 

 goes to the foot. We shall now perhaps be able to understand the reason 

 and the effect of the operation. The nerve of the leg, we have said, is de- 

 rived from the union of several of the spinal nerv^es, and consequently it is 

 a nerve of combined feeling and motion. The fibres connected with mo- 

 tion, however, are directed only to those parts which are concerned in the 

 production of motion, and these are the muscles. By the contraction of 

 the muscles, caused by the influence of the nerves, the limbs are moved. 

 The bones, the blood-vessels, and other parts, are merely passive. Now 

 the muscles of the leg of the horse do not extend below the knee. No part 

 concerned in the production of motion is found below the knee, and the 

 fibres of the nerve which are connected with motion are all distributed 

 above this joint ; and when we divide the nerve either on the pastern, or 

 above the fetlock, we do not touch a single fibre connected with motion. 

 Those which are connected with feeling are continued to the very extre- 

 mity of the foot, and these are the fibres which we divide in the operation 

 of neurotomy, or nerve-cutting. We cannot possibly interfere with the 

 motion of the limb, but we take away the sensibility or feeling of the foot, 

 and relieve the animal from torture ; and, doing this, we not only render 

 him a service in return for the many we have received from him, but we 

 often and speedily abate the inflammation of the part, and give time for 

 the use of remedies, which we should otherwise have been unable to apply, 

 and thus possibly retain his services for many a year. 



It is long before a new operation or practice, however useful or judicious 

 it may be, is generally adopted, and, probably, the majority of our readers 

 are some of the last to shake off the prejudices and errors of their fore- 

 fathers. We have heard it said by many a farmer, and by many a farrier, 

 too — " What ! cut the nerve of the limb ! Is not the nerve the very life of 

 the limb? Does not the limb derive all its support from the nerve? 

 Will not the foot waste away, and even the hoof drop off?" When this 

 operation has been improperly j^erformed, and where common sense would 

 have forbidden it, and the horse, not only freed from pain, but from feeling 

 too, has battered and bruised his foot, which the sensation of pain would 

 not have permitted, and thus the structure of the foot has been injured or 



