156 VETERINARY SURGICAL OPERATIONS 



throughout civilized countries where scientific veterinarians 

 were located. It was introduced in this country by graduate 

 veterinarians from English colleges. The operation was 

 mentioned by lecturers on veterinary medicine and surgery 

 in the first American colleges, but it was little practiced until 

 the '70's, when scientific veterinarians became more numer- 

 ous throughout the American cities. During later years 

 when colleges adopted better methods of teaching surgery, 

 it gained more favor than any of the other nerving opera- 

 tions. It has been given precedence over the other opera- 

 tions, and was always recognized as the most valuable of 

 them all, but being somewhat more difficult to perform than 

 the high operation, there was some delay in its general 

 adoption by the veterinary profession. Veterinarians who 

 would have performed it in preference to the high operation 

 denied their clients the benefit of its greater appropriateness 

 because of the fancied difficulty of its performance. Today 

 digital neurotomy is a standard veterinary operation, per- 

 formed without ceremony by almost every veterinarian who 

 makes any pretense to practice the surgical features of ani- 

 mal therapy. 



INDICATIONS. — Digital neurotomy is performed for 

 the single purpose of curing' lamenesses due to painful dis- 

 eased processes located in the region of the postero-inferior 

 aspect of the second interdigital articulation. Lesions of the 

 plantar aponeurosis, the navicular sheath, the navicular bone, 

 described generally under the single appellation of "navicu- 

 lar arthritis" are the indications for the operation. The pos- 

 terior digital nerve, the largest branch of the plantar, dis- 

 tributes its end organs largelyto the solar aspect of the foot. 

 It is the sensory nerve of the perforans tendon as it nears its 

 strong attachment to the semi-lunar ridge ; of the synovial 

 apparatus that furnishes lubrication to the bursa interposed 

 between the tendon and the inferior, fibro-cartilaginous face 

 of the navicular bone; of the navicular bone itself; of the 

 major portion of the velvety tissue and plantar cushion, and 

 of the posterior and internal parts of the third phalanx. 

 These structures are the seats of many of the morbid condi- 

 tions which produce lamenesses of variable degrees of inten- 

 sity in horses working upon paved streets. Sometimes the 

 disease is an osteitis, sometimes a synovitis, sometimes. a ten- 

 dinitis, but more often it is a combination of all three. As 

 to its cause, it is generally attributed to concussion, strain, 

 rheumatism, etc., but from the very nature of its inception, 

 course and termination there is every reason to suspect the 



