’The expansion of the heel, and rapid development of the frog (in this and many other cases) immediately after the operation, has not, I venture to think, attracted so much attention as it deserves, and may have something to do with those cases which appear to be actually cured, not merely made to go sound by absence of pain.’[A]

[Footnote A:  Veterinary Record, vol. xi., p. 297.]

Speaking of the median operation before a meeting of the Central Veterinary
Medical Society, Professor Hobday says:[A]

[Footnote A:  Veterinary Record, vol. xiii., p. 427.]

’For old-standing lamenesses, when due to splints, exostoses, chronically sprained, thickened, and painful perforans and perforatus tendons, or cases of that kind which cause pain by pressing on the adjacent nerve structures, after all other known methods have failed, median neurectomy is the operation which will be most likely to give the animal a new lease of life and usefulness.’

’Of the Humanity and Utility of Neurectomy there can be no question whatever, and provided the cases are well selected, and the operation is efficiently performed, the advantages to be derived from it are most striking as well as enduring.  But the disadvantages attending the loss of sensation in the foot have been brought forward on many occasions as an argument against neurectomy, and no one can deny that the foot with sensation is better than one without that faculty.  But in a long experience of the operation I have never found these disadvantages outweigh the great advantages which have immediately followed it.’[A]

[Footnote A:  Veterinary Journal, vol. ix., p. 178 (Fleming).]

Beyond these, the direct advantages of neurectomy, are other and more indirect advantages which claim attention.

The most astonishing among them is the fact noted by many writers of repute that exostoses (ringbones, side-bones, splints, etc.) rapidly diminish in size.  This is vouched for by such well-known authorities as Zundel and Nocard.

Percival, too, mentions at some length the effect of the removal of pain on the oestral and generative functions, quoting a case of a brood cart-mare by reason of bony deposits being stayed from breeding for some years.  Two months after the operation she went to work, and moved sound, her altered condition leading her to breed several healthy foals.

I. THE USE OF THE HORSE THAT HAS UNDERGONE NEURECTOMY.

No operation is of any considerable value to the veterinary surgeon unless he is able to show that after it he has left his patient workable.  The alleviation of pain alone, commendable as it is from a humanitarian standpoint, is of no interest to the average owner of horse-flesh, unless with it he sees his animal capable of justifying his existence by the amount of labour performed.