CAUDAL MYOTOMY. 297 



of his master), renders caudal myotomy an operation of necessity. 

 This occurs with those animals which have contracted the annoy- 

 ing habit, when driven in harness, of switching their tails over the 

 reins and, in effect, grasping and holding them so tightly that it 

 is only with difiaculty that they can be extricated — often placing 

 the driver in a position of imminent peril by making it impossible 

 to control their movements at a moment when perhaps a disas- 

 trous collision or other dangerous encounter may impend. 



There is also another condition which relieves caudal myotomy 

 from the imputation of relying for its justification exclusively on 

 the plea of being in the fashion, though it involves only the 

 sordid argument of a money consideration. This condition is 

 found in the case of the animal which carries its tail sidewise or 

 with a lateral curvature — a deformity which may in many instances 

 considerably diminish his market value. In other words, if the 

 contra^indication of the operation is the fact of bad conformation 

 of the animal and a low insertion of the tail, the indications, leav- 

 ing aside the question of good appearance, no matter if the tail is 

 attached low or high, are when the horse has the habit of taking 

 hold of the reins by switching it over them, and again when the 

 taU is carried crookedly sideways. "We proceed to consider the 

 operation under aU the requirements. 



Caudal Myotomy Proper, or Pricking, means the division of 

 the two inferior sacro-caudal muscles, for the purpose of dimin- 

 ishing their contractile power. It is performed in several ways, 

 most of which consist not only in the division of the muscles, 

 but in the removal of a portion of the muscular substance. 

 There is, however, one method of which we have failed to dis- 

 cover any mention by European authors, and which we have for 

 years practiced in the United States, where it has been in vogue 

 for a period of more than forty years. This mode of operation 

 we shall consider in another place as the " American methods 

 A glance at plate 314 will show the peculiar anatomical position 

 of the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves of the region to be oper- 

 ated upon. Peuch and Toussaint refer to six modes of operations, 

 but we think the matter can be judiciously simpUfied by reducing 

 the number by at least one-half. We shall therefore adopt a sim- 

 pler classification, and describe the operation as it is performed 

 hj, Jirst, the transversal incision; second, the longitudinal; and 

 third, the transversal and longitudinal in combination. 



