258 
OBSERVATIONS ON NEUROTOMY. 
it;—it has now to rise to a certain point in the scale of veterinary 
surgery, where it will remain in despite of all future controversy.” 
I will now ask, Have my words proved true or not 1 Has neu¬ 
rotomy been cast aside, and no longer practised on account of its 
being a torture,”—an ineffectual operation,”—a remedy worse 
than the disease;” or has it become a means of cure to the rejec¬ 
tion of remedies before in use, and that are known to be service¬ 
able, and so long as they prove curative 1 No judicious practitioner, 
I will venture to affirm, would recommend a horse to be neuroto- 
mized whose case admitted of cure—nay, even of relief—by other 
means: at least, if he did, with the fruits of all the experience we 
now have before us, I should say, his judgment would stand chance 
of being impugned. On the other hand, the same sagacious prac¬ 
titioner would not, in the face of the same experience, dream of 
blotting such a potent and valuable aid as neurotomy out of his 
catalogue of therapeutic agents. Many instances are recorded of 
fractured foot-bones and cast-off hoofs, after the operation, or—if 
anti-neurotomists like—in consequence of the operation; but is 
this occasional, or rather fortuitous, evil, to debar us from doing a 
great good? because one man happens to die from the operation of 
lithotomy, are we to permit all patients with stone to straddle in 
pain and suffering to their graves ? If such sufferers were told that 
the operation was but 20 to 1 in their favour—and it is more 
than that—yet Avould they not rather submit to it than live out 
their lives so uncomfortably and wretchedly ? Could we hold forth 
the same argument to our own patient—could he but understand 
it—think you that he would not rather be twice neurotomized than 
be compelled to limp along in his work upon his lame and painful 
foot ? And to him, poor fellow! the argument comes with a great 
deal stronger force; for his choice is between neurotomy and 
death. I/is master says, ‘‘ Unless I can render my servant use¬ 
ful to me, I shall have him shot: I cannot afford to keep him doing 
nothing.” The pain—the asserted torture”—we put our servant 
to in neurotomizing him, is, as an argument, not worth considera¬ 
tion ; for, in the first place, it is not so very painful an operation; 
and, in the second, there are other operations a great deal more 
painful which we perform, and with the sanction, too, of these pre¬ 
tended philanthropists, every day; which are nicking and firing. 
And is not the painful operation for tic doloreux performed, without 
hesitation, on man, to relieve a greater pain ? Why, then, should 
we not be allowed to sever horses’ nerves as well as men’s ? 
But, as I said before, no man of sound observation and judg¬ 
ment will think of resorting to such an operation as neurotomy, 
with all its acknowledged uncertainty of event, until he has given 
every trial to other means of cure : by such cautious and wise pro- 
