299 



position for a period sufficient for the formation of the provisional cal- 

 lus, and the third, which in fact is but an incident of the second, the 

 careful avoidance of any accidents or causes of miscarriage which might 

 disturb the curative process. 



In reference to the first consideration, it must be remembered that 

 the accident may befall the patient at a distance from his home, and 

 his removal becomes the first duty to be attended to. Of course this 

 must be done as carefully as possible. If I:e can be treated on the spot 

 so much the better, though this is seldom jjracticable, and the method 

 of removal becomes the question calling for settlement. But two ways 

 present themselves — he must either walk or be carried. If the first, it 

 is needless to say that every caution must be observed in order to 

 obviate additional pain for the suffering animal, and to avoid auy 

 aggravation of the injury. Led slowly, and with partial support if prac- 

 ticable, the journey will not always involve untoward results. If he is 

 earned it must be by means of a wagon, a truck, or an ambulance : the 

 latter, being designed and adapted to the purpose, would of course be 

 the preferable vehicle. As a precaution which should never be over- 

 looked, a temporary dressing should first be applied. This may be so 

 done as for the time to answer all the purpose of the permanent adjust- 

 ment and bandaging. Without thus securing the patient, a fracture of 

 an inferior degree may be transformed to one of the severest kind, aud, 

 indeed a curable changed to an incurable injury. We recall a case in 

 which a fast trotting liorse, after running away in a fright caused by 

 the whistle of a locomotive, was found on the road limping with 

 excessive lameness in the off fore leg, and walked with comparative 

 ease some 2 miles to a stable before being seen by a surgeon. His im- 

 mediate removal in an ambulance was advised, but before that vehicle 

 could be procured the horse laid dowo, and upon being made to get 

 upon his feet was found with a well-marked comminuted fracture of the 

 OS su0"raginis, with considerable displacement. The patient, however, 

 after long treatment, made a comparatively good recovery aud though 

 with a large bonj^ deposit, a ringbone, was able to trot among the 

 forties. 



The two obvious indications in cases of fracture are reduction, or re- 

 placement, and retention. 



In an incomplete fracture, where there is no displacement, the neces- 

 sity of reduction does not exist. With the bone kept in place by an in- 

 tact periosteum, and the fragments secured by the uninjured fibrous and 

 ligamentous structure which surrounds them, there is no dislocation 

 to correct. It is also at times rendered imjiossible by the seat of the 

 fracture itself, by its dimensions alone, or by the resistance arising from 

 the muscular contraction excited by the surgical manipulation. This 

 is illustrated even in small animals, as in dogs, by the exceeding diffi- 

 culty encountered in bringing the ends of a broken femur or liumerua 

 together, the muscular contraction being even in these animals suffi- 

 ciently forcible to renew the displacement. 



