450 OPERATIONS—PERIOSTEOTOMY. 
tumor, seton and all. This last practice may add to the severity of the 
operation, but it seems calculated to do little good. Breaking down 
the attachment of the skin and slicing the tumor appear 
designed to deprive the growth of blood, while a blister 
seems calculated to draw to the part an excess of that 
which the operation was intended to dispel. 
Periosteotomy is not very highly esteemed by the 
vast majority of practitioners. It is, however, some- 
times very successful. A horse is thrown, being dead 
lame; the animal gets up from the hands of the surgeon 
and trots sound. It is difficult, however, to predicate 
the quadruped on which it will thus act. Certainly the 
operation is best adapted to young horses; but even to 
a sorse’s wa win 1 of these it will not prove beneficial. It is therefore 
ae Ont on wan looked upon as a surgical experiment, quite as apt to 
¢ ¢c, OUT OF WHICH 
TANG Des . ~6=6 disappoint as to please. The seton, moreover, is dis- 
KNOTTED ENDS OF 
asgerON Ds posed to cause the edges of the holes through which it 
passes to indurate. A blemish which it takes some 
months to eradicate is the consequence; and this, added to the expense 
attendant upon treatment, is not apt to prove pleasing to horse proprie- 
tors, especially when the operation altogether fails. 
A modification of periosteotomy might perhaps be tried. Omit the 
seton altogether; make an inferior snip with the scissors; introduce a 
sharp-pointed needle, and cat a channel. Then insert a probe-pointed 
bistoury, and incise the tumor. If periosteotomy were to prove suc- 
cessful, it probably would be so in this shape. The author has seen small 
benefit result from the after-use of the seton, and by operating in the 
manner proposed all the subsequent blemish would be avoided. The 
cut would soon heal and leave no scar behind: thus the grand objec- 
tion to the performance of periosteotomy, as it now stands, would be 
removed. 
The motive for the above proposal is to spare the suffering of the 
animal. If the hair is cut short previously, and pressure made above 
the snip of the scissors, the wound need occasion little pain. A sharp 
point cutting its way through the cellular tissue would not cause one 
tithe of the agony which follows the use of a blunt instrument necessa- 
rily tearing, stretching, and breaking a passage through a living body. 
Cartilage or bone in a state of health has small sensibility. The em- 
ployment of the knife would therefore provoke no struggle, while all 
the after-torture of a seton applied directly to the surface of a wound 
would be avoided. 
Perhaps it would be best to bind a broad tape, with a cork under it 
