624 
ON COFFIN-JOINT LAMENESS. 
rich field would be opened to physiological research. It was 
resolved, therefore, to divide both nerves, in case of relapse of 
great lameness in a mare. The animal on rising from the bed 
trotted boldly and without lameness, but now and then stum¬ 
bled with the foot operated upon. The wounds healed in a few 
days, and the mare was put to grass. 
Some w eeks afterw ards, a favourable account was received of 
her soundness from her owner; but she was soon brought to 
London on account of a large sore at the bottom of the foot ope¬ 
rated on, and extending from the point of the frog to the middle 
and back part of the pastern. It appeared that the mare, in 
galloping* over some broken glass bottles, had set her foot full 
upon a fragment of the bottom of one of them, which cut its w ay 
through the frog and tendon into the joint, and stuck fast in the 
part for some seconds, whilst the animal continued its course, 
apparently regardless of the injury. The w ound bled most pro¬ 
fusely, but the mare appeared not lame. 
Many days elapsed before I saw her, and then large masses 
of loose flesh w ere cut from the edges of the wound, without the 
animal shewing the slightest sign of suffering pain: and the pro¬ 
cesses usually attending sores w r ent on with the same appear¬ 
ances that take place in sores of parts not deprived of sensibi¬ 
lity; but such extensive injury had been done to the joint as 
rendered the preservation of free motion in it very improbable, 
even were the opening to close, which was matter of doubt. 
From the preceding experiment it has been shewn, that, by 
the diminution of the quantity of blood passing to the inflamed 
joint, the sensibility was not subdued, owing to adverse pecu¬ 
liarity of structure; that by the diminution of sensibility the 
repairing* powers of the part were not injured, as far as they de¬ 
pended upon the action of the blood-vessels ; that, by a very 
sudden division of one nerve a fatal accident w r as produced; 
and that, by the extinction of sensibility, the natural guard against 
external injury, through the division of both nerves, an acci¬ 
dent was rendered destructive, which, in the usual condition of 
the foot, might have been less injurious. The unfortunate re¬ 
sults of surgical practice candidly related, rank, in utility of re¬ 
cord, next to those of an opposite termination—errors in practice 
guiding experience to sound conclusions. 
I recollect not the number of horses operated upon by me 
successfuily, though it was somewhat considerable : some of 
these were worked by myself, and the general impressions on 
my mind at this interval are, that horses so operated upon, when 
they did not again become lame, were more apt to stumble with 
the limb operated upon than with the other; and that this mode 
