462 OPERATIONS—QUITTOR. 
LAYING OPEN THE SINUSES OF A QUITTOR. 
Give no opening medicine to any horse previous to this operation. 
Every member of the equine race is more likely to be too low from 
excess of work, than in any degree inflammatory from over-indulgence. 
Therefore, discard the general practice of preparing the horse with a 
dose of compound aloes. If the bowels are costive, get them open. 
But before employing the drastic drug, try what bran mashes and green- 
meat can effect. The entire strength will be needed to repair the injuries 
effected with the knife. 
Give tonics and high feeding where the symptoms declare the body to 
be enervated. It is at all times better to operate upon a system having 
a superabundance of vital energy than upon one in which the powers 
are at all tardy. Collapse is the greatest enemy the surgeon has to 
dread. It is true, animals do not, like men, often “shut up” or die 
while under the operator; but frequently the most skillful surgery is 
defeated by the horse, after it has been released from the hobbles, never 
thriving. There may be no disease to be detected; but the body seems 
to want the strength requisite for recovery. To make this apparent to 
the reader—two gentlemen shall each perform neurotomy. One shall] 
bungle, yet his patient shall do well. The wounds shall heal by the first 
intention, and the horse in a fortnight be again delighting its owner. 
The other shall display the perfection of scientific attainment; yet the 
horse shall never thrive. The wounds shall ulcerate, and the animal 
either gnaw the foot or cast the hoof. How can such differences be 
accounted for but by believing the horse is subject to a peculiar species 
of chronic collapse? 
Rasp the quarter of the horse’s foot which has quittor, until the soft, 
light-colored horn of the laminz is exposed. Then let the hair be cut 
off around the opening on the coronet, and the foot be carefully cleansed. 
Afterward throw the horse. Release the quittored leg from the hob- 
bles, and with a steel director probe each sinus. So soon as the instru- 
aent is well in, take a sharp-pointed knife and run it carefully down the 
groove of the director. Then ascertain, with a grooved probe, whether 
the sinus decreased in diameter, or whether the whole extent of the pipe 
be laid open. If the smallest portion remains, to which the knife has 
not reached, use the groove of the probe as a director, and slit it up. 
Do this to as many sinuses as may exist. 
Next place in each sinus a small piece of tow. These pieces of tow 
should be already divided into short and thin skeins. They should be 
