384 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
‘the young fibres run through the cicatricial bridge thrown between them, 
reach the peripheric segment, penetrate into the. sheath of Schwann or 
mingle together, and many of them instill together as far as the limits of the 
degenerated nerve, which is thus reconstituted. If these ends are separated 
by a cicatricial structure of a certain length, regeneration still takes place, 
‘providing, however, that the distance does not exceed 6 or 7 centimeters. 
It is so much more easy and complete that the interfragmentary cicatrix 
is more recent and shorter. It can not reach the periphery except by a 
conductor, and of course it must be admitted that many new-formed 
fibres are lost, degenerate, disappear; others stop in their'way; those that 
reach the periphery—the useful fibres—are but a small portion of the ele- 
ments born from the central end. At any rate, regeneration is always 
‘incomplete; the new nerve is farfrom having inherited, in the same degree 
.as the old one, properties of sensitive and motive branches. 
Some surgeons have recently mentioned cases in which sensibility re- 
‘turned in some regions, immediately after bringing in contact the ends of 
the divided nerve distributed in those regions (Tillaux, Nicaise, Polaillon, 
Segond, Berger). This fact has been explained by recurrence, assistance, 
arrest of inhibition or dynamogeny; but it is difficult to give of it a 
‘satisfactory interpretation, with the actual data of physiology.* 
It has been demonstrated that divided cylindraxis never unite again to 
‘others; there is always between them a fibrous cicatricial tissue, even in 
-cases where immediate reunion has been obtained; the preparations of 
Quénu prove it abundantly. The suture, performed early, cannot 
‘prevent the degeneration of the peripheric end. A forfior7, when the 
division is old, the most perfect suture will not permit the immediate 
‘passage of the nervous current; for this, the peripheric end, “true 
cadaver,” must be reanimated by regenerating from the centre to the 
periphery. Like anatomical repair, the functional remains very imperfect. 
The duration of the regeneration varies according to age, the height to 
‘which the nerve is divided, and whether there has been simple division or 
excision. It varies generally between five and six months. 
These data are sufficient to understand, better than with all proposed 
explanations, why the sensibility remains indefinitely reduced in the 
‘regions placed under the influence of nervous branches which have been 
divided or resected and why some lameness does not return, after 
neurotomy, notwithstanding the regeneration of the divided nerve. 
If the removal of the nervous influence does not seem to exercise a visible 
immediate action upon the intimate phenomena of nutrition, it may 
bring on lesions with rapid or slow development, inflammatory or gangren- 
‘Berger, Laborde, Lifort, Bulletin del’ Académie de Médecine, Paris, 1893, pp. 293» 
313) 355» 450- 
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