ON COFFIN-JOINT LAMENESS. 
a pair of scissors. This was done in several instances, and 
always with immediate and decided lessening- of lameness; fre¬ 
quently, indeed, the animal, when he rose from the bed, appearing 
perfectly sound: but the result was not uniformly and perma¬ 
nently successful, relapse of lameness occasionally taking- place 
after a period of soundness for some weeks, and as often at grass 
as at work. This was attributed to re-union of the cut ends of 
the nerve; and in subsequent operations, therefore, about a 
quarter of an inch of the lower division of the nerve was snipped 
off. The performance of the operation was expedited by pushing- 
under the nerve a curved knife, with a crooked beak like a bent 
probe, which brought the portion to be divided quickly and 
singly against the cutting part of the blade; and the facility and 
expedition with which the division was effected, induced a dis¬ 
play of dispatch in operating which was most severely punished. 
A horse with coffin-joint lameness being thrown and secured, 
the nerve on the outside of the fetlock bared by two strokes of a 
round-edged knife, was cut across with the crooked knife. The 
operation took up a few seconds; but at the instant the nerve 
was divided the horse made a violent and sudden exertion to 
disengage himself. A crash, as if from within his body, was heard 
by the bystanders, and my intelligent assistant felt the shock of 
internal fracture as he lay over the animal, and whispered in my 
ear that the horse had broke his back. This, in fact, had hap¬ 
pened, and the animal w as destroyed w ith the consent of the 
owner. Lord G. H. Cavendish, to whom the circumstances were 
recited. 
The muscles of the back, thrown into violent contraction by the 
shock consequent on the sudden division of the nerve, had 
broken the body of one bone of the loins, right across through its 
whole substance, and fractured the lateral processes of several 
other bones of the same part. This fracture could not have 
happened if the body and limbs had been at liberty; and perhaps 
nothing but the sudden division of a large nerve could have pro¬ 
duced so violent an exertion ; for the same operation had been fre¬ 
quently done without exciting very violent muscular convulsion, 
though never without producing some degree of struggle: but in 
these cases the division had been effected more leisurely, and 
experiments made on the bodies of horses immediately they 
w ere put to death at slaughter-houses, proved that where the 
great nerve of the thigh was cut across, suddenly , more violent 
convulsion ensued than where it was cut across slowly. These 
facts may be worthy attention, provided further trials bring 
the performance of the operation in question into greater use. 
It has been stated that relapses oi lameness subsequently to 
