FRACTURES. 413 



Fracture of the patella. — This does occasionally, though very seldom 

 occur. It is usually the consequence of violent kicks, or blows, and if this 

 singular bone is once disunited, no power can bring the divided portions of the 

 bone together again. 



Fracture of the tibia. — This affection is of more frequent occurrence, and 

 of more serious consequence than we were accustomed to imagine it to be. 

 Mr. Trump, twelve years ago, first called the attention of the profession to some 

 singular circumstances connected with the tibia. A large draught horse be- 

 longing to the Dowlais Iron Company, at Merthyr Tydvil, came in from his 

 labour very lame in the near hind leg, but with no visible sign of any severe 

 injury being received. The foot was searched, but nothing farther was done. 

 He stood in the stable several days, and then was turned into a field, and was 

 discovered one morning with the limb dependent, and a fracture of the tibia just 

 above the hock. 



Fourteen or sixteen months after that, another horse came home from a 

 journey of seven miles, lame, with a slight mark on the inside of the thigh — a 

 mere scratch, and very little tumefaction. There was nothing to account for 

 such severe lameness : but, a few mornings afterwards, the tibia was seen to be 

 fractured. The front of the bone was splintered as from a blow. 



Two months after that, another horse had been observed to be lame seven or 

 eight days. A slight scratch was observed on the inside of the thigh, with 

 a little swelling, and increased heat and tenderness just above the hock. 

 Mr. Trump had examined the foot during the time that the horse stood in 

 the stable, not being satisfied that the apparently slight injury on the thigh could 

 account for the lameness. He was turned to grass, and three days afterwards 

 the tibia was found broken at the part mentioned, and evidently from a blow. 

 Were there not positive proof of the circumstance, it would have been deemed 

 impossible that a fracture, and of such a bone, could have existed so long 

 without detection.* 



Mr. J. S. Mayer gives an interesting account of the successful treatment of 

 a case of fracture of the tibia. The simplicity of the process will, we trust, 

 encourage many another veterinary surgeon to follow his example. 



"A horse received a blow on the tibia of the near leg, but little notice 

 was taken of it for two or three days. When, however, we were called in to 

 examine him, we found the tibia to be obliquely fractured about midway 

 between the hock and the stifle, and a small wound existing on the inside of the 

 leg. It was set in the following manner : — The leg from the stifle down to the 

 hock was well covered with an adhesive compound ; it was then wrapped round 

 with fine tow, upon which another layer of the same adhesive mixture was laid, 

 the whole being well splinted and bandaged up, so as to render what was a 

 slightly compound fracture a simple one. The local inflammation and sympa- 

 thetic fever that supervened were kept down by antiphlogistic measures. At 

 the end of six weeks the bandages and splints were removed, and readjusted in 

 a similar way as before, and at the termination of three months from the time 

 of the accident he was discharged, cured, the splints being wholly taken off, and 

 merely an adhesive stay kept on the leg. The horse is now at work and quite 

 sound, there being merely a little thickening, where the callus is formed ."f 



Fracture of the hock. — This is not of frequent occurrence, but very diffi- 

 cult to treat, from the almost impossibility of finding means to retain the bone in its 

 situation. A case, however, somewhat simple in its nature occurred in the practice 

 of Mr. Cartwright. A colt, leaping at some rails, got his leg between them, and, 

 unable to extricate himself, hung over on the other side. After being liberated 



* Veterinarian, vol. iii. p. 394. ciation. Some other cases of the successful 



t The Transactions of the Vet. Med. Asso- treatment of fractures are related in this work. 



