56 M. DUPUY ON THE OPERATION OF NEUROTOMY. 
minished, and perhaps may have disappeared, and then the return 
of the nervous energy will bring w ith it that of nutrition; the 
parts will have recovered their sensibility, and the foot will have 
regained all desirable security. If the manner in which we 
have explained the consequences of neurotomy is conformable 
w ith truth, it ought to happen, that whilst the return of sen¬ 
sibility does not announce the re-establishment of nervous 
energy, the secretions of the foot ought to be suspended, and 
the inflammatory phenomena ought to cease. A recent ex¬ 
ample has proved to us that it is really so: an old she-ass 
that we destined for experiment was very lame in one of the 
fore legs, and only w T alked on its toe. We divided the per- 
forans tendon, after having previously furnished the foot with 
an iron at the toe much prolonged. After the operation we 
constrained the animal to take short and gentle exercise, which 
we proposed to render each day longer and quicker. At the 
end of the second day, the forced extension caused by the arm of 
the lever which formed the prolongation of the toe excited in 
the whole of the foot and a part of the fetlock the most in¬ 
tense inflammation, characterised by heat, swelling, and ex¬ 
cessive sensibility. The idea struck us to excise a part of the 
plantar nerves; we did it, and almost immediately sensibility 
ceased below the division: soon afterwards the heat diminished, 
and then the swelling, and, at the end of a few r hours, every 
symptom of irritation had ceased. Now we ask, could it have 
been thus if the plantar nerves presided only over the sensibility 
of the part ? It is evident that in destroying their action we 
caused a cessation of the phenomena which depended on the 
nutritive agency of the nerves. It cannot, then, be denied that 
these nerves exercise a very direct and perhaps an absolute in¬ 
fluence on nutrition. If now, instead of supposing the opera¬ 
tion to be well done, that is to say, with such a loss of the 
substance of the nerve, that its functions momentarily suspended 
may be re-established by the cicatrization of the part, we ima¬ 
gine that neurotomy had been performed with the loss of a very 
considerable portion of the nerve, and that which w ill for ever de¬ 
stroy the nervous influence: we repeat, that though the operation 
may be very useful in the first case, it is follow ed in the second 
by the loss of the animal. At first the effects are the same, but 
nutrition is not re-established, and the loss of the hoof is 
certain. 
We are aware that many objections may be raised to this, 
and that we may be told that cur opinions are not supported 
by direct experience. But there is only one obstacle by which 
we can be opposed—that is, the question of the re-union of the 
