MEMOIR ON TENOTOMY. 
584 
If, however, in human medicine this operation, destined on a 
future day to shine with so much eclat , had, as it were, but made 
its entre, it nevertheless did not cease to continue progressively, 
though slowly, to gain ground in veterinary medicine. The French 
hippiatrists had for a long time been acquainted with the opera- 
tion, on account of its being for the first time essayed on man. 
They likewise knew that the sections of tendons and aponeuroses 
in animals were never hardly followed — unless under circum- 
stances altogether exceptionable — by insufferable pains, extend- 
ing outwardly, and giving rise to most alarming symptoms. We 
shall do no more than name such writers, French and foreign, in 
their order after Solleysel, who have made mention of tenotomy. 
In the first rank stand Lagueriniere and Lafosse (sen.), both of 
whom straightened bound and contracted limbs by dividing the 
aponeurosis of one of the flexor muscles of the arm, an operation 
in later times described by M. Brogniez under the appellation of 
transverse coraco-radial aponeurotomy. At an epoch much nearer 
our own, we behold tenotomy succeeding in the hands of the 
veterinary Professors Gohier and Rainard ; and in those of 
MM. Miguel and Debeaux, their pupils ; of some other French 
and foreign veterinarians; of MM. Bernard, Delafond, Professor 
at the Alfort School ; Chopin, veterinarian at Chalons sur Marve ; 
the veterinary Professors Prinz (of Dresden), and Gunther (of 
Hanover), whose works have proved of so much service to 
German surgeons ; Yon Ammon and Strohmeyer. Lastly, in our 
own time the operation, modified in its performance, has been 
employed with success at the Alfort School*. 
In veterinary surgery, the operation of tenotomy is usually only 
performed on the tendons of the flexor muscles of the leg, the per - 
foratus et perforans , with the intention of correcting congenital or 
accidental mal-formation in the region of the fetlock. It may, 
however, be practised with advantage on bowed legs or contracted 
sinews: in fact, we have ourselves frequently succeeded in almost 
entirely getting rid of a very considerable deviation from the per- 
pendicular in the articulation of the knee by means of a sub-cuta- 
neous section of the tendinous and aponeurotic part of the flexores 
meiacarpi. 
It is true, that in such cases Lafosse junior, and, after him, 
Messrs. Dieterichs, Bernard, and Brogniez, have recommended a 
transverse section of the coraco-radial muscle. We have only 
seen this operation performed once, and then it was by no means 
successful; but this single experiment does not justify us in olfer- 
ing any opinion respecting a mode of treatment which appears to 
* In our own country the profession are mainly indebted for the intro- 
duction of tenotomy to Professor Dick, of Edinburgh. — Ed. Vet. 
