313 



treating' human patients is denied to the veterinarian in the manage- 

 ment of those which belong to the animal tribes. This is position. 

 The intelligence of the human patient co-operates with the instructions 

 of the surgeon, but with the animal sufferer there is a continual antag- 

 onism between the i^arties, and the forced extension and fatiguing posi- 

 tion which must for a considerable period be maintained as a condition 

 of restoration require special and effective appliances to insure success- 

 ful results. To obtain complete immobility is scarcely jiossible, and 

 the surgeon must be content to reach a point as near as possible 

 to that which is unattainable. For this reason, as will subsequently 

 be seen, the use of slings and the restraint of patients in very narrow 

 stalls is much to be preferred to the practice sometimes recommended, 

 of allowing entire freedom of motion by turning them loose in box 

 stalls. Temporary and movable apparatus are not usually of difiicult 

 use in veterinary practice, but the restlessness of the patients and 

 their unwillingness to submit quietly to the changing of the dressings 

 render it obligatory to have recourse to permanent and immovable 

 bandages, which should be retained without disturbance until the 

 process of consolidation is complete. 



The materials composing the retaining apparatus consist of oakum, 

 bandages, and splints, with an agglutinating compound which forms 

 a species of cement by which the different constituents are blended 

 into a consistent mass to be spread ui^on the surface covering the 

 locality of the fracture. Its components are black pitch, rosin, and 

 Venice turpentine, blended by heat. The dressing may be applied 

 directly to the skin, or a covering of thin linen may be interposed. 

 A putty made with powdered chalk and the white of egg is recom- 

 mended for small animals, though a mixture of sugar of lead and 

 burnt alum with the albumen is preferred by others. Another formula 

 is spirits of camphor, Goulard's extract and albumen. Another recom- 

 mendation is to saturate the oakum and bandages with an adhesive 

 solution formed with gum arable, dextrine, flour j)aste, or starch. 

 This is advised particularly for small animals. Dextrine mixed, Avhile 

 warm, with burnt alum and alcohol cools and solidifies into a stony 

 consistency, and is preferable to plaster of Paris, which is less friable 

 and has less solidity, besides being heavier and requiring constant 

 additions as it becomes older. Starch and plaster of Paris form 

 another good compound. 



In applying the dressing the leg is usually padded with a cushion 

 of oakum, thick and soft enough to equalize the irregularities of the 

 surface and to form a bedding for the protection of the skin from 

 chafing. Over this the splints are placed. The material for these is, 

 variously, pasteboard, thin wood, bark, laths, gutta percha, strips of 

 thin metal, as tin or perhaps sheet iron. These should be of suffi- 

 cient length not only to cover the region of the fracture, but to extend 

 sufficiently above and below to render the immobility more complete 



