70 
CASE OF NEUROTOMY. 
wish to caution my brother practitioners against the use of the 
farina ready prepared for them by the druggist. The oil is pro¬ 
bably extracted, and the croton adulterated into the bargain. I 
purchased a pound of the farina from a London wholesale drug¬ 
gist, and I have given from thirty grains to three drachms of it 
without producing any purgative effect. I then powdered the 
seeds in a mortar when I wanted them, and they have never 
disappointed me like the farina. I have given them in the pro¬ 
portion of three grains instead of a drachm of aloes. On my 
first using it, I gave it in the proportion of five grains to a 
drachm of aloes, but found it too strong generally. If too large 
a quantity be ground at a time, it becomes mouldy by keeping, 
and probably injured. In the fatal case of superpurgation, 
mentioned in the Veterinarian, vol. i, page 233, it was not 
produced by the farina, but by the croton seed. 
In two cases where I had given croton seeds, the tongue and 
inside the mouth were abraded, and which I attribute to the 
stimulating quality of the medicine, the balls having been broken 
in the mouth, and not immediately swallowed. 
A CASE OF NEUROTOMY. 
By Mr. S. V. Gregory, Warminster. 
At the latter end of August 1827, I was requested by a gentle¬ 
man to see a horse of his, seven years old, that had suddenly 
fallen lame in hunting eighteen months before. He would occa¬ 
sionally be much lamer than at other times, but never had been 
free from the first attack, and was observed frequently to rest his 
near fore foot in the stable. On examining the limb, I could find 
nothing to cause lameness, and he had as well shaped, circular, 
strong foot, as I think I had ever seen. As he had been useless 
for full eighteen months, and had been repeatedly blistered from 
the foot to the knee, without any benefit, the gentleman gave 
me full liberty to do as I pleased with him. Accordingly after 
keeping the fetlock bandaged a few days, and the bandage wet 
with a solution of salt and cold water, and giving him a mild dose 
of physic, I proceeded to operate, on the 3d of September, by ex¬ 
cising about an inch of the nerve on each side of the leg, two 
inches above the fetlock joint, and just below the division of the 
nerve. The horse continued lame for three or four days after the 
operation ; but from that time to the present has neither been ob¬ 
served to point his foot, nor go otherwise than sound. He was re¬ 
gularly worked six weeks after the operation, and hunted all last 
