180 
NEUROTOMY. 
the posterior and outer border of the flexor tendons, still inclining 
outward in its course until it reaches the outer edge of the per- 
forans tendon, which for some few inches above the fetlock is the 
best guide we can take to find it. Upon the side of the fetlock it 
joins the outer posterior artery, running at first close behind the 
vessel, and pursuing its course in relation to the artery in pre- 
cisely the same manner as its fellow on the opposite side, the 
internal metacarpal nerve, and giving off in its passage similar 
branches. 
The Operation in itself, to a veterinarian acquainted with the 
anatomy of the parts we have been examining, and whose hand is 
at all practised in operations of the kind, is any thing but complex 
or difficult. With the limb properly placed, and the security of 
it such as will not admit, from struggling, of any material derange- 
ment of its position, and with a twitch on the animal’s nose, the 
operator commences by making his 
Incision through the Skin. — Supposing him to be operating 
for lameness in the foot, which is the case of ordinary occurrence, 
it is the plantar nerve that becomes the subject of operation; and 
the place for many reasons found most convenient for its division 
is upon the pastern. The first of these reasons may be stated to 
be, that, when the seat of lameness is, as it commonly is, the 
navicular joint, the division of the nerve at this site answers the 
end required, while it leaves, uncut off, sensation in the anterior 
parts of the foot. The second is, since a horse never cuts or 
bruises his pastern, he will not strike either the wound that is 
made, or any tubular enlargement upon the end of the divided 
nerve that may follow the operation. The third, that the nerve is 
pretty well as accessible here as upon the fetlock ; a situation in 
which the performance of the operation is amenable to one, if not 
to both, of the objections just mentioned. 
The pastern, then, being the part chosen for the operation, the 
operator, either with his knife or bistoury, proceeds to business. 
The old-fashioned mode of proceeding is to make an incision with 
a scalpel directly down upon the nerve ; and for my own part I do 
not think, taking all matters into consideration, that this mode has 
been improved upon. There certainly is no occasion to make so 
lengthy an incision as was formerly made ; in fact, the smaller the 
incision the better : at the same time, unless some longitudinal 
opening be made in the skin, the operator will find himself trou- 
bled, first, in getting hold of the nerve when divided; and, secondly, 
in dragging sufficient length of it out (through such a confined 
aperture as is made by a bistoury) to excise the requisite portion 
of it. Prior to making his incision, let him trace with his lingers 
the border of the united flexor tendons in their course along the 
