CHERRY'S OPERATION 97 



CHERRY'S OPERATION 



It frequently happens that after treatment of injuries to the 

 front of the knee a permanent scar remains at the seat of the 

 injury. It is denuded of hair, the hair follicles having been destroyed. 

 To encourage a growth of hair, tincture of cantharides and other drugs 

 are frequently used, but rarely with any satisfactory effect. Frequently 

 the scar is not detrimental to the action of the joint, but it is an eye- 

 sore ; and even when its presence can be satisfactorily explained as being 

 due to accident, quite apart from any defective action of the animal, the 

 antipathy to any blemish on the front of the knee is so general that even 

 a slight scar materially affects the market value of the animal, which is 

 usually condemned as having " been down," implying an unsafe action 

 and a tendency to stumble. Upon these grounds the operation of dis- 

 secting away the scar, originally introduced by Cherry, after whom the 

 operation is named, is amply justified. 



In performing this operation the strictest attention must be paid to 



rendering the operation area aseptic. The hair is removed from the 



whole of the front of the joint with the razor. With a very sharp 



scalpel two clean-cut curved incisions are made, one on either side 



the scar. The concavity of the curve is directed towards the scar. 



above and below which the incisions therefore meet, enclosing an area 



of skin which is somewhat lozenge-shaped, and which includes the scar. 



Two other linear incisions are made, one on either side of this area. 



The skin, with the scar included within the two curved incisions, is now 



dissected carefully away, injury to the subcutaneous structures being 



strictly avoided. Haemorrhage from the small cutaneous vessels must be 



arrested, and when this has been done the edges of the wound are 



brought together by inserting interrupted sutures at regular intervals ot 



a quarter of an inch. The utihty of the two linear incisions is now 



apparent, for they facilitate the approximation of the edges of the 



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