142 VETERINARY SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



these possibilities must be weighed deliberately before the 

 performance of "high" can be justified. It is not in navicular 

 disease that this operation finds its greatest usefulness. In 

 this common affliction it might be truthfully said that any 

 horse that does not receive a marked benefit from the "low" 

 operation is too badly diseased to long survive the "high" 

 operation. While there may be some exceptions to this rule, 

 the practitioner will seldom encounter them. The practi- 

 tioner who will take a positive and firm stand against the too 

 free application of this operation for incurable navicular dis- 

 ease, will in the end gain more favor than the one who en- 

 thusiastically recommends it at every provocation. 



Sidebones present by far the best indication for plantar 



Fig. 82— Sidebone. 



neurotomy. In these lesions it is a specific remedy, espec- 

 ially the unilateral operation for the unilateral sidebone. 

 Here the operation is almost universally curative. It does 

 not matter whether the patient is a heavy draft horse, a coach 

 horse, a roadster, a hunter, or even a race-horse, the results 

 are satisfactory. The exceptions are found only in the gen- 

 eral contra-indications. Acute lameness is, of course, a re- 

 striction, as should be the case under any similar circum- 

 stance, and in very large sidebones the lameness may not 

 always be entirely cured because they may mechanically ob- 

 struct the motion of the phalangeal articulations and thus 

 cause a defective gait even when all of the pain is banished, 

 but even in this event the patient is sufficiently benefited. The 

 operation is equally beneficial for the large and the small 



