682 OPEKATIONS. 



are white, tough, and fibrous in appeaiance. Each of them is 

 accompanied by a vein and artery, the former being in front ; and 

 the latter, as a rule, in the middle. The word " van " furnishes 

 us with a useful aide-memoire by which to remember how these 

 structures lie. Their relative position, however, is not invariably 

 constant. 



NEUROTOMY AS AFFECTING A HORSE'S USEFULNESS.— 

 The tactile sense in the horse's foot is useful ; but that it is 

 absolutely essential even to safe progression, no one who has paid 

 attention to the results of plantar neurotomy will maintain. For 

 years horses have been hunted, hacked, and driven after having 

 been deprived of sensation in their fore feet, without having am 

 accident with them. Their action had not been impaired by the 

 operation ;• on the contrary, it was vastly improved, compared 

 with what it had been previous to it. Many competent horsemen 

 can give like evidence after long and severe trials of neurotomised 

 horses. The opponents of neurotomy were probably not aware 

 that there is in progression a muscular as well as a tactile sense. 



INDICATIONS AND UNFAVOURABLE RESULTS.— The 

 effects of neurotomy are certain and durable when it is employed 

 at the commencement of navicular disease, and the ailment is con- 

 fined to one foot. It is impossible for the operation to be 

 successful, when the navicular bone and tendon are destroyed lay 

 ulceration. 



The operation is strongly recommended in cases of chronic lame- 

 ness from sidebones ; ringbones, except when they are accompanied 

 by bony union of the joint; chronic laminitis ; injuries to the 

 hoof which may have caused a bony formation on the pedal bone, 

 or may have had the effect of increasing, to an abnormal extent, 

 the local growth of the inner horn of the hoof, constant pa,in from 

 pressure being the result in either case; or from surgical opera- 

 tions on the foot. English veterinarians consider that horses 

 whose feet have suffered more or less from laminitis should not 

 be " unnerved." Such feet are generally flat, and have weak 

 soles and heels. 



It is probable that inflammatory action is less liable to be 

 excited in a neurotomised foot than in a sound one. 



It is evident that good results from high plantar neurectomy 

 can be confidently expected only when it is performed during an 

 early stage of a foot disease to which it is applicable. 



As an " un-nerved " horse when being shod, runs the risk of beinw 

 pricked without the owner or attendant becoming aware of it 

 until most serious results subsequently manifest themselves the 



