69 
MR. T. W. MAYER TO MR. PERCIVALL, ON THE 
DISCOVERY OF NEUROTOMY. 
My dear Mr. Editor, Newcastle, Jan. 12, 1848. 
In your excellent paper on Neurotomy, which appeared in the 
December number of your Journal, you state that the “introduction 
of neurotomy into veterinary medicine is comparatively of modern 
date. For years before the division of nerves had been practised 
by human surgeons, in particular for the relief of that most painful 
of all painful affections, tic doloureux ; but there is no mention of 
any application of the operation in veterinary surgery prior to the 
time of Moorcroft,” & c. 
Without intending to throw any doubt upon the accuracy of this 
statement, or desiring to enter upon the question as to who was the 
discoverer of neurotomy for the removal of lameness, I cannot help 
directing your attention to an insinuation that has been made, 
“ that neurotomy is not a modern discovery,” and a brief considera- 
tion of the grounds upon which that opinion is given. 
You are doubtless aware that, in many of our old writers, an 
operation, which they called taking up the veins, was very much 
praised in certain diseases of the feet and hock ; in fact, I believe 
that the operation is now sometimes performed by the old farriers 
for what is called bog spavins. It is upon this practice of taking 
up the veins, or, as the French call it, barring the veins, that 
a foundation is sought for the truth of the remark that neurotomy 
was not unknown to the ancients. 
In a little work, intituled “ The Art of Shoeing Horses,” by the 
Sieur de Solleysel, to which are added Notes on his Practice, by 
Frederick Clifford Cherry, Principal Veterinary Surgeon, the 
operation of barring the veins is thus described in chapter IV, 
which treats of flat feet, and such as have their soles round and 
high : — 
. . . . “ Above all things, if your horse has flat feet, you 
should bar the pastern veins. This operation, however, is not 
absolutely necessary, unless your horse has his soles round and 
high ; yet this is not to say but that the doing of it contributes 
very much to the amendment of flat feet. To do it, you must 
know that in the pastern there are two veins below the joint, the 
one upon the inside, and the other upon the out ; which veins must 
be barred, that so you may put a stop to the superfluous humour 
which falls down upon the lower part of the foot, which, through 
time, makes ifhe foot become round and high at the sole. 
“ To bar the pastern veins right, you must tie them near the 
