NEUROTOMY. 
251 
While no cutting or meddling should be spared which can any- 
wise conduce to the efficiency of the operation, it is at all times 
an object, and one deserving consideration, to leave as little 
wound or blemish as possible consequent on it. This consideration 
has prompted the substitution for the ordinary operation of what 
may be called 
Subcutaneous Neurotomy ; the operation surgeons are in 
the habit of resorting to, when nerves are to be divided for the 
relief of tic doloureux, or other painful affections ; a long, straight, 
narrow, sharp-pointed bistoury being the instrument commonly 
used for the purpose. That a similar operation admits of being 
introduced — nay, has been successfully practised — in veterinary 
surgery is not to be denied. In the first place, however, it must 
be remembered that it is in those situations only in which nerves 
run unaccompanied by arteries, or in which a nerve runs at some 
interval of distance from an artery, that such an operation becomes 
practicable ; and, in the second place, it must be borne in mind 
that nerves simply cut in two in a little time after unite again, 
and then the lameness, of course, may be expected to return ; it 
not being practicable to excise any portion through such an open- 
ing as a bistoury makes. So that, in point of fact, unless for any 
time-serving or sinister purpose, such as the palming of a horse 
off for sale that has been lame and will become lame again, as a 
sound horse, hardly any end is answered in a case of lameness by 
the operation of simple division of a nerve. It is different, how- 
ever, in such a case as tetanus, or in any case, in fact, in which 
the simple requirement is the immediate abstraction of pain or 
sensibility : the veterinary surgeon then, finding himself placed in 
the same position as the surgeon, may, if practicable, have recourse 
to the same method of operating. 
All that admits of being done, in the ordinary mode of operating, 
by way of expediting the healing of the wound, and lessening the 
chance of blemish, is making the incision as clean as possible, 
and clean down upon the nerve at once, so as to render subsequent 
dissection unnecessary ; and at the same time to be careful to* make 
the wound no larger than is absolutely required for the excision of 
sufficient length of nervous cord. With a convenient instrument, 
it is practicable to seize and divide the exposed nerve through a 
smaller opening than when a ligature has first to be passed under- 
neath it; and we have two instruments in particular which an- 
swer this purpose extremely well. One is the invention of 
Mr. Ernes, Veterinary Surgeon, Dockhead. It is in 
the form — as will be seen in the annexed woodcut — of a straight 
sharp-edged bistoury, to the pointed part of the blade of which is 
