ON NEUROTOMY. J81 
to the profession and his country, and we will permit him to per¬ 
form it in his own way. 
M, Dupuy, after inflicting a little deserved chastisement on 
our celebrated veterinarian,^ Mr. Clater, and his disciples, ac¬ 
knowledges that the subject on which M. Berger treats is a 
very important one, and has been too long and too much neg¬ 
lected. He approaches it however with caution, and demands 
that a novelty shall not be hastily adopted, without the strictest 
examination into the theory on which it rests, and the most de¬ 
cisive experience of its beneficial result. He then gives an 
admirable account of the anatomy of the foot, and the causes 
which render the fore feet so much more susceptible of lameness, 
than the hind ones. We regret that an unusual pressure of 
matter will not permit us to extract it. 
When there is no mechanical derangement of the foot, no 
great inflammation, no abscess, he can see no objection to the 
adoption of this method of relieving pain, and removing that 
lameness which depends on the existence of that pain. 
He then considers the objections to neurotomy, most of them 
g^now exploded among us, but which were once strongly advo¬ 
cated, and which we can imagine to have considerable weight 
where the operation is imperfectly understood, and its beneficial 
consequences not actually experienced. 
Some, he tells us, have feared that the foot would be rendered 
perfectly insensible, and that it would necessarily become an 
inert and useless body. He replies, that the nerves which sup¬ 
ply the foot were not nerves of motion, but of feeling alone. 
The nerves of motion terminate far above the place of incision. 
How then, he asks, can paralysis be produced ? 
The circulation will not be suspended, for many reasons. The 
parietes of the arteries receive fibres from the ganglionic system 
of nerves ; and, even if the nervous energy were suspended, the 
circulation would be kept up by the impulse of the heart and 
the elasticity of the arteries. 
He acknowledges that experience is decisive on the subject. 
Many horses, on whom all other methods had been tried in vain, 
have been rendered serviceable for several years. The means 
which failed were complicated and expensive. This is simple 
and economical, and directly attacks the soiuce of pain and the 
cause of disease. 
