ON NEUROTOMY. 
179 
on several of his own stud ; but in almost every case the hoof ^ 
shortly separated from the foot. Herver, a farrier in Paris, 
likewise attempted it in the same year, but with no better suc¬ 
cess. The subjects to be operated on were unskilfully select¬ 
ed by each. 
From this time neurotomy, although occasionally resorted to, 
was not received into the list of acknowledged veterinary ope¬ 
rations, and M. Berger may be considered as having first brought 
it fairly before the French public 
M. Berger was in London in July, 1826, and having been in¬ 
troduced to Mr. Sewell by Dr. Crawford, the assistant-profes¬ 
sor operated on several horses in his presence. 
M. Berger was so pleased with what he saw that he deter¬ 
mined, on his return to France, to attempt neurotomy, on as 
large a scale as opportunity would permit. His paper contains 
the result. 
He previously, however, communicates a very singular piece of 
intelligence, that there is a veterinarian in London, who has ac¬ 
quired great reputation from his skilful and successful firing in 
cases of ring-bone. He almost invariably removes the lame¬ 
ness. The secret of the affair is, that unauthorized by, and un¬ 
known to the proprietor of the horse, he excises a portion of the 
nerve, and conceals the incisions by the application of the cau¬ 
tery and by the use of coloured ointments. 
We should not object to neurotomy for ring-bone where ac¬ 
tual anchylosis had not taken place, but we detest this mystery 
and trickery; and if the thing be true, and any correspondent will 
furnish us with the name of this worthy member of our pro- 
* Neurotomy was in a few instances tried, as a curious experiment, in the 
Colleges of Alfort and Lyons, but it was never publicly recommended by any 
of the professors. Mention of it occurs but once, and that indirectly, in the 
whole course of the French journals, when M. Huzard, Junr. is reviewing Mr. 
Blaine’s “ Veterinary Outlines,’^ and, although he cannot deny that it may 
be occasionally useful, his praise is cold and guarded. He cannot compre¬ 
hend why nature should have distributed the nerves to certain parts if the 
excision or removal of them could be effected with impunity. He imagines 
that the nerves are concerned in the function of nutrition, and that by their 
excision the proper nourishment of the part must be cut off, (strange that the 
professor of a veterinary college should have so confounded the functions 
of the ganglionic and spino-cerebral nerves!) and he cannot forget that when 
he witnessed the performance of neurotomy at the English college, the 
horse got up much lamer than before the operation. (Journal de Med. Vet. 
Mai, 1826.) Hurtrel D’Arboval, in his voluminous and scientific “ Diction- 
naire de Medicine et de Chirugie Veterinaire,^’ makes not the slightest allu¬ 
sion to the operation. Ed. 
