298 
T. S. VERY. 
It is a notorious fact that in former years the operation has 
been injudiciously performed by traveling “horse-doctors who 
made the operation a specialty.” Horses were thus deprived of 
sensibility in their feet without good and sufficient cause, but 
simply for a dollars and cents consideration between practitioner 
and owner. 
If the chances of destroying the animal have been explained 
to the owner, which in some cases is doubtful, the owner has taken 
these chances in order to effect a quick recovery from lameness, 
considering the matter, as they are frequently prone to do, simply 
in its commercial aspect. The operator has done a mean and 
despicable thing for a paltry reward, and either ignorantly or in¬ 
differently injured his own reputation—if he has had any; has 
brought discredit upon an operation the benefit of which is ac¬ 
knowledged in many cases, and upon a profession the members of 
which are, as a body, the equal of any in point of humanity and 
respectability. 
It is not necessary to enter into any details concerning the ad¬ 
visability of operating or refusing to operate in certain stages of 
disease, or in the different conditions and conformations of the 
feet. The importance of deciding which are and which are not 
proper subjects is well understood, but much good judgment can 
be used, or grave mistakes made by the operator in arriving at 
conclusions, in making a thorough analytical diagnosis, and in his 
conception of pathological conditions as influencing results. 
The matter to which I desire to call attention is one quite as 
important as any of these, but I believe nothing has heretofore 
been written or said professionally about it. I have never heard 
it discussed or alluded to, and but for an experience that called 
my attention to it, probably I should not have this opportunity. 
It relates to the effect of the operation upon the gait of the fast 
trotting horse. 
Among some horsemen the opinion prevails that an. animal 
trots faster after having been successfully neurotomized, and it is 
easy to discover other conditions favoring why he should go freer 
and faster, with quickened step and increased stride. 
But there arc cases in which, instead of improving the fast 
