PARTICULAR FRACTURES 235 



disturbance will supervene later on. For several days after such an 

 accident the liability to brain trouble will continue. 



Where the bone is simply split without depression, a dose of physic, 

 and cold cloths applied to the part, with perfect quiet, are all that is 

 required. 



If a wound exists, it should be thoroughly cleansed and kept aseptic by 

 repeated dressing on antiseptic lines. 



Depressed bone, if provoking brain disturbance, must be levered up, 

 but where no such disturbance exists it should be left alone, and the course 

 suggested above followed out. 



FRACTURE OF THE VERTEBRAE 



Fracture of the vertebral column is an accident which is now and again 

 brought to the notice of most veterinarians in the course of their practice, 

 but it is by no means an event of common occurrence in this country. 

 Moller, a German authority, avers that he has "frequently seen riding- 

 horses, in violently bucking, or falling over backward, or in arching the 

 neck excessively, fracture a cervical vertebra ". Such an experience of 

 one division of the vertebral column, added to that of the others, would 

 seem to warrant the statement that " it is not uncommon in horses"; but 

 the writer is of opinion that Moller's experience is unique and exceptional, 

 and cannot be taken to represent that of the general practitioner. 



Fracture of the cervical vertebrse, or neck-bones, is of less frequent 

 occurrence than fracture of the bones of the back and loins. It is seen 

 most frequently in steeple-chase horses and hunters which, having missed 

 their foothold in jumping, or after failing to clear a strong fence, pitch on 

 the face, and bring all the force of impact and weight to bear against tlie 

 incurved neck. In one case the writer found it to result from the 

 struggles of a horse whose head became fixed between the wall of his 

 stall and the post which supported the manger. It may, no doubt, 

 sometimes arise from a backward fall on the poll. 



Fracture of a vertebra may involve the body, or the arch of the 

 bone, or both, or one or more of its processes may be chipped off. AVhen 

 the former are broken through, displacement invariably results, and the 

 spinal cord receives a fatal pressure — fatal, because breathing is arrested in 

 consequence of paralysis of the diaphragm, which receives its nervous sujjply 

 from the cervical spinal cord, which now foils to transmit it. 



Symptoms. — Fracture of the vertebrae in the middle and lower part of 

 the neck is speedily fatal, and in any position the same result sooner or 

 later follows. 



