313 



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 cov- 

 ered 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 difficulty of locomotion, 

 and crepitation will be easy 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 animal 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 the radio-cubital arch down to 

 the knee, it may 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 insuffi- 

 cient space. It is a matter of observation that, under these circum- 

 stances, fractures of the incomplete kind are those which occur on the 

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

 taneous, while those of the complete class are either oblique or trans- 

 verse. The least common are the longitudinal, in the long axis of the 

 bone. 



This variety of fracture is easily recognized by the appearance of the 

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

 the limb 5 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. 

 The fracture of the cubitus alone, principally above the radio-cubital 



