OPERATIONS ON THE FOOT 109 
Speaking of the median operation before a meeting of 
the Central Veterinary Medical Society, Professor Hobday 
says :* 
‘For old-standing lamenesses, when due to splints, 
exostoses, chronically sprained, thickened, and painful 
perforans and perforatus tendons, or cases of that kind 
which cause pain by pressing on the adjacent nerve 
structures, after all other known methods have failed, 
median neurectomy is the operation which will be most 
likely to give the animal a new lease of life and use- 
fulness.’ 
‘Of the Humanity and Utility of Newrectomy there can 
be no question whatever, and provided the cases are well 
selected, and the operation is efficiently performed, the 
advantages to be derived from it are most striking as well 
as enduring. But the disadvantages attending the loss of 
sensation in the foot have been brought forward on many 
occasions as an argument against neurectomy, and no one 
can deny that the foot with sensation is better than one 
without that faculty. But in a long experience of the 
operation I have never found these disadvantages outweigh 
the great advantages which have immediately followed it.’ + 
Beyond these, the direct advantages of neurectomy, are 
other and more indirect advantages which claim attention. 
The most astonishing among them is the fact noted by 
many writers of repute that exostoses (ringbones, side- 
bones, splints, etc.) rapidly diminish in size. This is 
vouched for by such well-known authorities as Zundel and 
Nocard. 
Percival, too, mentions at some length the effect of the 
removal of pain on the estral and generative functions, 
quoting a case of a brood cart-mare by reason of bony 
deposits being stayed from breeding for some years. Two 
months after the operation she went to work, and moved 
sound, her altered condition leading her to breed several 
healthy foals. 
* Veterinary Record, vol. xiii., p. 427. 
+ Veterinary Journal, vol. ix., p. 178 (Fleming). 
