having
satisfactorily performed the operation on numerous animals for fully
eighteen years prior to Professor Sewell's announcement. It appears that
Moorcraft left this country for India in 1808, having practised the
operation in more or less obscurity for some six or seven years previous
to that. After his departure neurectomy, as introduced by him, either died
away in repute, or was not made by him sufficiently public to become a
matter of general knowledge. To Professor Sewell, therefore, although not
the actual originator of the operation, belongs the honour of making it
public to the veterinary profession.

In 1824, five years after Sewell's introduction, we find it practised on
the Continent by Girard. We gather, however, from the writings of Percival
and Liautard, that both in this country and on the Continent the operation
was for several years largely in the stage of experiment. Unsuitable
subjects were operated on; the work afterwards given to the animal
improperly adjusted to his altered condition; and the bad after-results of
the operation almost ignored by some, and greatly exaggerated by others.
In fact, some long time elapsed before veterinary surgeons allotted to the
operation that measure of credit which the results following it warranted.

_The Object of the Operation_ is to render the foot insensitive to pain,
and to give to an otherwise incurably lame animal a further period of
usefulness. After the operation, as time goes on, this object may become
defeated by the reunion of the divided ends of the nerve. In that case,
neurectomy must necessarily be performed again.

_The Operation_.--Two forms of neurectomy are recognised--the high
operation and the low. The low operation deals with the posterior digital
branch of the plantar nerve, and the high operation with the plantar
itself.

It is the latter operation with which we shall deal first. In our opinion
it is that most likely to be followed by satisfactory results. The area
supplied by the posterior digital is mainly the posterior portion of the
digit. Thus, unless the cause of the lameness is diagnosed with certainty
to be situated somewhere in the posterior region of the foot, section of
the posterior digital alone will not give total insensibility to pain.
Added to that, we may remember this: Below the point at which the digitals
branch off from the plantar there is always more likelihood of the part
we are attempting to render insensible be