NEUROTOMY. 
667 
happening to cut her foot severely in galloping over some glass 
bottles, such severe injury accrued to “ the joint” (the coffin) 
that her case became hopeless. Mr. Moorcroft winds up this 
interesting account of neurotomy with the following very sensible 
practical deductions : — 
“ From the preceding experiments it has been shewn, that, by 
the diminution of the quantity of blood passing to the inflamed 
joint, the sensibility was not subdued, owing to adverse peculiarity 
of structure ; that by the diminution of sensibility the repairing 
powers of the part were not injured, as far as they depended upon 
the action of the bloodvessels ; that by a very sudden divisibn of 
one nerve a fatal accident was produced ; and that by the extinc- 
tion of sensibility, the natural guard against external injury, 
through the division of both nerves, an accident was rendered 
destructive, which in the usual condition of the foot might have 
been less injurious. The unfortunate results of surgical practice, 
candidly related, rank in utility of record next to those of oppo- 
site termination — errors in practice guiding experience to sound 
conclusions. 
“ I recollect not the number of horses operated on by me suc- 
cessfully, though it was somewhat considerable. Some of these 
were worked by myself, and the general impressions on my mind 
at this interval are, that horses so operated on, when they did not 
again become lame, were more apt to stumble with the limb ope- 
rated on than the other ; and this mode of treatment was likely to 
be more usefully applicable to coach-horses than to horses intended 
for single harness or for the saddle*.” 
These observations shut out all doubt or surmise, not only that 
the operation of neurotomy had been practised, but practised suc- 
cessfully by Mr. Moorcroft, before he departed for India, which 
was in the year 1808 ; at the same time that they afford us 
reason for believing, that the same talented and skilful veterinarian 
was on the brink of bringing forth what has since been brought to 
light through the experiments of Mr. Sewell, viz. the utility of 
neurotomy as a remedy for the removal of lameness in cases where 
medicine is confessedly powerless, together with the serviceability 
of neurotomized horses, not for driving only, but for riding, and 
even for hunting. It appears, however, from this account, that 
Moorcroft did not continue long enough in England to perfect that 
which he had so promisingly commenced ; and that, after he had 
left, neurotomy had died away in repute, or rather had never been 
made public until it was proclaimed to the veterinary world by 
Professor Sewell ; and therefore to that gentleman is equitably 
* The entire paper from which these extracts are made will be found in 
The Veterinarian, vol. iii, p. 619, et seq. 
