55S OPERATION OF TENOTOMY IN THE HORSE. 
required, some evaporating lotion to the surrounding parts, 
with the view of preventing an undue quantity of blood accu¬ 
mulating at the seat of injury; for sometimes, when such is 
the case, a larger amount of exudation takes place than is 
required to heal the breach, and, perhaps, it is unsuitable for 
the formation of structure, or it may be of a qualitjq arising 
from other circumstances, favorable to the suppurative 
action. Our object should always be to assist nature, and 
not to frustrate any one of her great laws. 
I shall now quote some cases from an undoubted high 
authority on surgical pathology, which I hope will bear 
out the assertions I have made in favour of subcutaneous 
operations. 
At p. 171, vol. i, of Paget’s c Lectures on Surgical Patho¬ 
logy/ he says, “ I had frequent occasion to observe these dif¬ 
ferences in a series of experiments made for the illustration 
of the healing of divided muscles and tendons. Some of these 
were divided through open wounds, and some by subcu¬ 
taneous sections, and the recital of a single experiment may 
afford a fair example of the difference of results that often 
ensued. In the same rabbit, the f tibialis anticus/and the 
f extensor longus-digitorum/ were divided on the left side 
with exsection through the skin, on the left, with a sub¬ 
cutaneous section through a small opening. Twelve days 
afterwards the rabbit was killed. The wound on the left 
side was well repaired, and with comparatively little trace 
of inflammation. The gap on the right side was closed in 
with a scab, and an imperfect scar; but under this was a 
large collection of pus, and no trace of reparative process.” 
The above experiment corresponds in its results with 
what I have observed in the division of tendons in the horse, 
and clearly shows the superiority of the subcutaneous opera¬ 
tion over the open wound, which is necessarily more or less 
exposed to the influence of the atmosphere. It also agrees, 
as far as the results are concerned, with the two cases I have 
before mentioned, namely, the one which I operated upon 
at Bromley, Essex, and the other by the veterinary surgeon 
in the year 1852. 
So superior do I consider the subcutaneous mode of ope¬ 
rating, by small puncture, over the open wound, that I shall 
quote some other experiments from the same talented author 
I have already alluded to, Professor Paget. At p. 265, vol. i, 
he writes: “In the case of divided Achilles’-tendon, the dis¬ 
advantages of open wounds, i. e ., of wounds extending 
through the integuments, over and each side of the tendon, 
as well as through it, were as follows:—1st. There was 
