I have a character who needs to pass as human to go on a mission to Earth. Unfortunately, having goat horns is not a good way to pass as human. She will need to have them removed, but she doesn't have official permission to do so, so she'll have to do it herself. She has access to a library specializing in related topics, and she *might* be able to find someone willing to help her, although it would be nice if she didn't have to. She can also use magic to dull pain. How could I make this work?
Introducing our first answer from Dr Dactyla, the new mod for ScriptVeterinarian.
So, as I see it, your character will have four problems to overcome: getting the horn off without damaging anything else, controlling pain, preventing extensive blood loss, and closing the skin over the horn stump.
Let’s start with the first issue. It’s going to be a bit more complicated if your character has true goat horns, rather than just goat-like ones. This is because adult goats (and other ruminants, like cows) have an open space at the base of the horn that communicates with the sinuses in their skull. The sinuses, in turn, are only a thin slice of bone away from the brain. By removing the horn, you create an opening into the sinuses, and it’s not a great idea to get an infection in there. Here is an image of the sinuses and their out-pocket in the horn (a.k.a. the cornual diverticulum) in a cow:
(Image is from: Textbook of Veterinary Anatomy by Dyce, K.M., Sack, W.O. and Wensing, C.J.G.)
If the character’s horns are only goat-like, though, they could be solid bone at the base. That would simplify things considerably.
Theoretically, the character could perform the actual removal of the horns by themselves using the same obstetrics wire vets do. The angle might be a little uncomfortable, but the basic idea is to wrap the sharp wire around a pair of handles to protect your hands and then saw back and forth with it until it does the job. The trick would be in preventing the wire from coming into contact with skin, hair, or anything else you don’t want damaged or tangled up.
You mentioned that the character can control pain magically, so I won’t go into the specifics of how we anesthetize goats for dehorning here. It’s probably more than enough to know that there are two nerves which are responsible for sensation from the horn, and we anesthetize (or “block”) them near the base of the horn via injections.
Lastly, we need to contend with the blood flow to the horn. Horns have a keratin covering wrapped around a core of bone, and bone is a living tissue which correspondingly needs a blood supply. Depending on how close to the skull your character makes the cut, there could be multiple blood vessels severed. If your character also has the ability to magically stop blood flow, they could probably manage this whole shebang solo; if not, they’re going to need a partner in crime to stop the bleeding, through some version of clamping, tying off, or cauterizing the arteries in question. Be careful with heat this close to the skull proper, though, as the brain is both closer and less tolerant of heat damage than you might think.
After all of this is said and done, the character will still have to find a way to close the skin over the spots where the horns were. If they can magically knit it together, you’re home free; otherwise, while it’s again theoretically possible to suture your own forehead, it’s not easy. They may need someone to do this for them, if for no other reason than that trying to sew backwards via mirror reflection is a pain.
With the skin closed, in the true goat horn scenario, the remaining holes in the skull will eventually fill in some with new bone, but it will take a while and the character might want to wear something to cover the spots in the meantime.