OPERATIONS ON THE FOOT 99 
After-treatment.—This is simple. Over each wound is 
placed a pledget of antiseptic cotton-wool or tow, and the 
whole lightly covered with a bandage soaked in an anti- 
septic solution. For the first night the animal should be 
tied up short to the rack, and the following morning the 
bandages removed. A little boracic acid or iodoform, or a 
mixture of the two combined with starch (starch and boracic 
acid equal parts, iodoform 1 drachm to each ounce) should 
now be dusted over the wounds, the antiseptic pledgets 
renewed, and the bandage readjusted over all. 
At the end of three or four days the bandages may be 
dispensed with. All that is necessary now is an occasional 
dusting with an antiseptic powder, and, as far as possible, 
the restriction of movement. At the end of a week the 
sutures may be removed, and the animal turned into a 
loose box or out to pasture. 
E. MEDIAN NEURECTOMY. 
As a palliative for lameness when confined to the foot, 
one would imagine that the plantar operation would be all 
sufficient. There are operators, however, who state that 
the results following section of the median nerve have been 
such as to cause them to entirely abandon the lower opera- 
tion in its favour. If only for that reason a brief mention 
of the operation must be made here. 
The operation was first performed in this country in 
October, 1895, the subject being one of the out-patients at 
the Royal Veterinary College Free Clinique. 
For five or six years following this date Professor 
Hobday performed the operation some several hundred 
times, and was certainly instrumental in bringing the 
operation into prominence. Though so recently introduced 
here, if appears to have been practised for several years on 
the Continent, originating in Germany as early as 1867. 
In that country a first public account of it was published in 
1885 by Professor Peters of Berlin, while in France it was 
introduced by Pellerin in 1892. 
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