NEUROTOMY. 
4:>3 
passes down the back of the leg, while another, given off imme- 
diately below the knee, ramifies over the front of the leg, and 
thus the sensibility of the integument of the leg depends entirely 
on the ulnar nerve. On the fetlock, it also sends off two branches 
to the fore part of the fetlock, to the lateral cartilage, the frog 
and the laminae, and finally expends itself on the sole. It is 
that to the outer side of the fetlock, cartilage, &c. which the 
radial nerve was to the inner side ; and, together, they bestow the 
whole sensibility below the knee. 
The Situation of the Nerve easily detected . — There will be no 
difficulty, even to the merest tyro, in discovering the precise 
situation and course of the metacarpal nerve, whether the inner or 
the outer. It descends the leg on either side close to the edge 
of the flexor tendons, and in company with the metacarpal artery 
and vein — the artery lying nearest to the nerve, and the vein 
being outside, or, in other words, the artery lying between the 
vein and the nerve. There can scarcely be a possibility of 
mistake. The vein may not be so easily felt, until after the 
application of the tourniquet; but the artery is recognized by its 
pulsation, and the nerve, lying inside it, is detected by its un- 
yielding firmness. After the application of the tourniquet, the 
yielding roundness of the vein, outside, and the unyielding 
structure of the nerve, will be sufficiently evident ; and you 
will only have to remember, that between them lies the artery, 
the course of the blood through which you have interrupted by 
your ligature. I do not know an operation, so far as the mere 
performance of it goes, on which the young veterinary surgeon 
might venture with greater confidence. 
Blunderers . — There have, however, been blunderers even here. 
A young man, not a great many miles from the metropolis, affirmed 
that a lame horse which he examined had the navicular disease, 
and he recommended the operation of unnerving. The horse 
was cast — the operation lasted only two hours, and the animal 
got up as lame as before ; and so he remained, the operator 
continually maintaining that “the muscles of the arm had not yet 
come to their proper tone(!) and that after a few days’ more 
exercise all would be well”. The poor beast, however, got worse 
and worse, and was at length destroyed. It occurred to the groom, 
who was an intelligent kind of fellow, and who had uttered some 
few execrations while the mangling was going on, that all was 
not right, and he cut off the legs and carried them to the family 
surgeon. He obtained the assistance of another veterinary 
surgeon ; and, lo and behold ! not a single nervous fibril had been 
touched. 
Another case came under my own cognizance in 1832. A 
