M. DUPUY ON THE OPERATION OF NEUROTOMY. 55 
blished at the end of a certain time, is the only one that can 
effect a cure. Such is our belief: if it is admitted, according* to 
our belief, that nutrition and the secretions of the foot are not 
less dependent than sensibility on the plantar nerves; it will 
follow that those functions must cease in the foot with the 
action of the nerves by which they are carried on. Wc ask, 
what are the diseases of the foot that have not for their cause 
the increasing* action of the nutritive and secretory vessels'? For 
our own part We know of none ; and if that is the cause of these 
diseases, we immediately combat them by neurotomy: by that, 
the functions of the nerve cease; there is no more feeling* in the 
foot, nor are nutrition or secretion carried oh ; nevertheless, the 
circulation goes on as usual, the arterial blood arrives, and the 
venous blood returns. But this is the place to call the attention 
of the reader to an important point. Nutrition, as w r e under¬ 
stand it, is a complex phenomenon, and comprehends three se¬ 
parate actions. The first is addition; the second, arrang-ement; 
and the third, the abstraction of certain particles. The two first 
constitute assimilation or nutrition, properly speaking; and the 
last is alone opposed to the other two, and forms, if we may so 
express it, a species of de-nutrition. Now the section of the 
nerve prevents assimilation, but we are induced to beiieve does 
not in the least affect the progress of decomposition in the parts, 
or the w ithdrawing of the particles; and that which supports 
this idea, is, that the blood which returns to the foot has the 
same venous qualities after the operation as it had before. 
Thus the section of the nerve having the effect of suspending 
assimilation, while, at the same time, it permits, if it does 
not augment, the contrary action, neurotomy will attack those 
diseases, on the cause of which it must necessarily have a 
direct influence, and which we believe to be no other than an 
augmentation of assimilative action. The better to explain our 
meaning, we will suppose a case—an exostosis; for which the 
operation of neurotomy has been performed. It is evident that 
this exostosis, regarded as an augmentation of nutrition in the 
bone, would cease to increase, because the operation would 
oppose itself to the additional action of nutritive power; but at 
the same time that the addition of particles ceases, the sub¬ 
traction of them continues, and therefore not only the tumour 
does not increase, but it diminishes, since, without receiving no 
new particles, it constantly loses those of which it was before 
composed. Such would be the effects of neurotomy so lon<:* as- 
a new substance shall not re-unite the ends of the nerve, and re¬ 
establish its influence. If the time that elapses before that event 
takes place is sufficiently long, the exostosis w ill have greatly di- 
