TWO CASES OF NEUROTOMY. 
547 
it being very clear that this was not an operation to be performed 
by an unskilful hand, I immediately dispatched my servant to 
Mr. Thomas Turner, the veterinary surgeon of this place, to 
request his assistance. He rode over immediately, and, after his 
repeated attempts with powerful instruments to extract the 
foreign body had proved ineffectual, he promptly had recourse to 
the scalpel, making a crucial incision through the muscles six 
inches by four (an aperture of this magnitude being required to 
admit of the hand grasping a firm hold of what now appeared to 
be a stake). The cause of resistance by this time having been 
ascertained to arise from the point of the stake being most rigidly 
fixed between the fifth and sixth ribs, he then with considerable 
muscular force succeeded in drawing out the supposed splinter, 
which however proved to be nothing less than the upper part of a 
stake, fourteen inches and a half long and six inches round. 
Although this case did not exactly fall within the province of 
a veterinary surgeon*, still Mr. Turner kindly undertook the 
operation; and it is to his skill and promptness that I am in¬ 
debted for the preservation of a very valuable animal, which is 
now perfectly recovered, notwithstanding the accident happened 
only a few days after her calving. 
I am, Gentlemen, &c. 
Charles Chaplin. 
TWO CASES OF NEUROTOMY. 
By Mr. Henry Christian, F.S., Canterbury. 
In August 1830, I was requested to see a pony which had 
been lame for some months, and when I saw it was almost en¬ 
tirely useless. After a careful examination, I found a small exos¬ 
tosis growing from the inner and inferior part of the large meta¬ 
tarsal of the near hind le£. I pursued the antiphlogistic system 
of bleeding, purging, and evaporating lotion, and the pony became 
much better, but still far from sound : after which I recommended 
a strong blister, which was repeated thrice; still he continued 
lame, and I advised the owner to have him destroyed. The 
* We must here beg leave to correct Mr. Chaplin. The ailments and the 
accidents of every domesticated animal “fall within the province of the 
veterinary surgeon.” So says ancient practice—so says the practice of 
every veterinary school in the world, save that of St. Pancras—so say com¬ 
mon sense and humanity. It, however, in the present state of things 
among us, reflects much credit on Mr. Thomas Turner that he acted so 
promptly and so skilfully in such a case.— Edit. 
