388 TRANSACTIONS AT THE ALFORT SCHOOL 
the expiration of 15 days, a month, six months, or a year 
even, according to the intensity with which the fresh limb is 
attacked. 
Another possible accident to happen after neurotomy, as a 
consequence indirect and remote from the operation, but for 
which the practitioner ought to be prepared, are compli- 
cations arising for the most part, in neurotomized feet, out 
of simple lesions, such as prick from shoeing, or corn, at first 
but superficial, — consequences that may be conceived likely 
or possible to happen in feet destitute of sensibility. In 
such feet as the neurotomized, one such lesion, simple at 
first, may become serious, and even irremediable ; for it is 
but too frequent for such lesions to cause inflammation 
running into suppuration and issue, and even open-joint 
itself. It is this consideration that dictates to us that the 
foot which has undergone the operation of neurotomy ought 
to be the object of constant surveillance — that it should be 
carefully looked to both by groom and farrier, and by the 
latter about the heels of the hoof in particular, to see that 
there are no corns present; also, that the same smith ought 
always to shoe such a horse, and take great care in driving 
the nails into the posterior parts of the hoof. 
To resume, — neurotomy, considered in its application to 
the navicular disease, is the last resource, by way of remedy, 
left in the hands of the practitioner for lamenesses con- 
secutive on navicularthritis ; although it is not a resource 
positively certain in its results, but one whose happy effects are 
but provisional ; — that, indirectly, neurotomy may prove the 
occasion of the most fearful accidents ; yet, nevertheless, it 
is our duty to avail ourselves of it in practice as an extreme 
measure applicable to desperate cases ; it being incontestible 
that it is capable of rendering useful services, which are the 
more certain the more simple the disease for which they are 
employed, as well as the more circumscribed it is, and the 
less complex ; and that, after the operation, precautions are 
taken to put the neurotomized feet out of the way of violent 
percussions and traumatic lesions. 
It is not only against navicular disease, in its various stages, 
that neurotomy may be employed with more or less advan- 
tage; it is likewise indicated as a remedy against all 
lamenesses which, as we have in a previous article suggested, 
are the results of permanent pain in the foot , without too great 
structural alteration of the diseased parts . Whenever, against 
diseases so characterised, the practitioner has exhausted to 
no purpose every resource art has placed at his disposal, he 
is warranted in making an appeal to neurotomy, and often 
