249 
ON DIVISION OF THE FLEXOR TENDONS, &c. &c. 
Bi) Mr. W. Young, V.S. Muirhead of Garnkirk, N.B. 
As I have been benefitted by the perusal of your Journal, and 
have at heart a wish for its prosperity, I beg leave to transmit 
the following cases. There is much prejudice existing among 
medical men, either considered as practitioners of the human 
subject, or of the lower animals. It is quite common for human 
surgeons round this district to declare that certain operations in 
veterinary surgery are quite impossible; while a few, better in¬ 
structed, confess that they have seen and assisted to perform 
analogous operations on the human subject. My allusion is to 
division of tendons. One surgeon, near this place, declares that 
he has witnessed seven cases of division of the tendons of the 
wrist in the human subject, all of which did not succeed alike, 
but that in one of them, of which to this day he has a know¬ 
ledge, the patient has a permanently useful hand. Having divided 
the flexors of four legs during the summer of 1833, I will briefly 
relate the result of them. Our brother practitioner, Mr. J. Hol- 
ford, related one case in The Veterinarian for March, 1834, 
in which his hope of permanent benefit was disappointed. Let 
him not, however, think that the only cases performed on this 
side the Tweed were those by our worthy professor, Mr. Dick ; 
for, from ten to twelve miles north of this, numerous cases have 
been performed by blacksmiths with uncommon success. 
CASE I. 
On the 28th of May, 1833, I was requested by Mr. D. Gillies, 
Innkeeper, Auchinstairy, to look at a bay pony that had become 
knuckled over for a considerable time, and that was now useless. 
Both forelegs were affected at first, but the near-side one had 
returned to its natural position. The off fore leg remaining quite 
over, I gave it as my opinion, that a division of the tendons was 
the only means of cure. The owner replied, that he knew a 
horse on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal had been cured 
by Mr. A. Herriot, V.S. Falkirk. Before the operation he could 
scarcely put his toe to the ground, but was only out of his work 
about two months, and was now quite straight and free from 
lameness. He therefore consented to my operating on the pony. 
The mode of operation I consider to be well known. After 
performing it, I, at first, only applied tow smeared with digestive 
ointment, and a broad bandage of old stocking. After three 
days, 1 used a solution of sulph. zinc, and liq. plumb, acct. At 
