NEUROTOMY 127 



originating this principle in the treatment of incurable pains 

 of the joints and tendons of horses. During the first three- 

 quarters of the nineteenth century these two operations 

 (plantar and sometimes digital neurotomy) were not, how- 

 ever, methodically adopted. They were performed in the 

 most desultory manner imaginable. Sometimes they were 

 credited as being capable of accomplishing wonders, and at 

 other times they were condemned as being nothing short 

 of malpractice. Some defended them and others, equally 

 prominent and capable, condemned them as harmful, ruin- 

 ous, cruel, ineffectual and unreliable surgery. The dis- 

 crepant opinions expressed from time to time since the 

 beginning are still found among the veterinarians of the 

 present day and the two operations are still condemned 

 by some from the ethical standpoint, it being argued that 

 lame horses are thus prepared for sale and that the vet- 

 erinarian is a conscious co-conspirator in the fraud. Others 

 continue to condemn them from the standpoint of un- 

 reliability, and still others because of the unfortunate se- 

 quelae that often'follow their performance. 



The tendency today is toward a more careful selection 

 of proper indications toward a more painstaking effort to 

 arrive at an exact diagnosis of the morbid. process causing 

 the pain, toward the exclusion of such operations where the 

 chances of doing harm are great, and toward a greater effort 

 to divide only the nerve that contributes the sensation to the 

 very seat of disease. 



Median neurotomy was first given publicity in this coun- 

 try by Pellerin, whose small manual on the subject was trans- 

 lated into English by Liautard in 1896. It may be described 

 as the third neurotomy operation introduced into veterinary 

 surgery. About the same time tibial neurotomy, peritoneal 

 neurotomy and ulnar neurotomy were attempted and per- 

 formed by veterinarians all over the world, in a frantic en- 

 deavor to cure the various lamenesses cpmmonly affecting 

 the horse. Like all markedly effectual lines of therapy, they 

 were all so much over-done and over-lauded that they left a 

 trail of discreditable failures and havoc in their wake, with 

 the result, again, of meeting with wide-spread condemnation 

 from many sources. Their history during the past fifteen or 

 twenty years is not unlike that of plantar neurotomy before 

 better pathology and more common sense dominated the vet- 

 erinarian's actions in applying them. 



The various neurotomy operations are now largely per- 

 formed by city practitioners, owing to the greater prevalence 



