324 



Displacement cannot be remedied, and reduction is next to impos- 

 sible. Sometimes an iron plate is applied over the parts and retained 

 by bandages, as in the dressing of Bourgelat ; and this may be advan- 

 tageously replaced by a pad of thick leather. In smaller animals the 

 parts are retained by figure-8 bandages, embracing both the normal 

 and the diseased shoulders, crossing each other in the axilla and 

 covered with a coating of adhesive mixture. 



Fractures of the humerus. — These are more common in small than 

 in large animals, and are always the result of external traumatism. 

 They are generally very oblique, are often comminuted, and though 

 more usually involving the shaft of the bone will in some cases extend 

 to the upper end and into the articular head. There is ordinarily con- 

 siderable displacement in consequence of the overlapping of the broken 

 ends of the bone, and this, of course, causes more or less shortening 

 of the limb. There will also be swelling, with difiiculty of locomotion, 

 and crepitation will be eas}^ of detection. This fracture is always a 

 serious damage to the patient, leaving him with a permanently short- 

 ened limb and a remediless, lifelong lameness. 



If treatment is determined on it will consist in the reduction of the 

 fracture by means of extension and counter extension, and in order to 

 accomplish this the aninuil must be thrown. If successful in the reduc- 

 tion, then follows the application and adjustment of the apparatus of 

 retention, which must needs be of the most perfect and efficient kind. 

 And finally, this, however skillfully contrived and carefully adapted, 

 will often fail to effect any good purpose whatever. 



Fracture of the forearm. — A fracture in this region may also involve 

 the radius or the cubitus, the first being broken at times in its upper 

 portion above the radio-cubital arch at the olecranon. If the fracture 

 occurs at any part of the forearm from tlie radio-cubital arch down to 

 the knee, it maj^ involve either the radius alone or the radius and the 

 cubitus, which are there intimately united. 



Besides having the same etiology with most of the fractures, those 

 of the forearm are, nevertheless, more commonly due to kicks from 

 other animals, especially when crowded together in large numbers in 

 insufficient space. It is a matter of observation that, under these cir- 

 cumstances, fractures of tlie incomijlete kind are those which occur on 

 the inside of the leg, the bone being in that region almost entirely sub- 

 cutaneous, while those of the complete class are either oblique or 

 ti-ansverse. The least common are the longitudinal, in the long axis 

 of the bone. 



This variet}^ of fracture is easily recognized by the appearance of 

 the leg and the different changes it undergoes. There is inability to 

 use the limb; impossibility of locomotion; mobility below the injury; 

 the ready detection of crepitation — in a word, the assemblage of all the 

 signs and symptoms which have been already considered as associated 

 with the history of broken bones. 



