FRACTURES. 415 



a violent effort by the horse to save himself from falling, when he has stumbled. 

 — it has happened when he has been incautiously permitted to run down a 

 steep descent — and has occurred when a horse has been travelling on the best 

 road, and at no great pace. 



The existence of fracture in this bone is, generally speaking, easily detected. 

 The injured foot is as lightly as possible permitted to come in contact with the 

 ground. As little weight as may be is thrown on it, or, if the animal is com- 

 pelled to use it, the fetlock is bent down nearly to the ground, and the toe is 

 turned upward. If the foot is rotated a crepitus is generally heard. 



This, however, is not always the case. M. Levrat was requested to examine a 

 horse that had suddenly become lame. The near hind leg was retracted, and the 

 foot was kept from touching the ground. He carefully examined the foot, and 

 discovered that much pain was expressed when the pastern was handled. H e 

 suspected fracture of the bone, but he could not detect it. He bled the animal, 

 ordered cooling applications to the part, and gave a dose of physic. Three days 

 afterwards he again saw his patient, and readily detected a fracture, taking a 

 direction obliquely across the pastern*. 



The probability of success in the treatment of this fiacture, depends on its being 

 a simple or compound one. If it runs laterally across the bone, it may be readily 

 and successfully treated — if it extends to the joints above and below, it will pro- 

 bably terminate in anchylosis, and if the bone is shivered, as it too frequently is, 

 into various parts, there would scarcely seem the possibility of a successful 

 treatment of the case. The instances, however, are numerous in which the case 

 terminates successfully. Hurtrel D'Arboval recommends that a bandage steeped 

 in some adhesive matter should be applied from the coronet to the middle of the 

 leg. On this some wet pasteboard is to be moulded, enveloped afterwards in a 

 linen bandage. A small splint is now to be applied before and behind and on 

 each side and the hollow places are filled with tow, in order to give them an equal 

 bearing. If this does not appear to be sufficiently secure, other splints, thicker 

 and broader, are placed over those extending to the knee or the hock. 



The case related by M. Levrat was treated in this way. It will be com- 

 paratively seldom that it will be necessary to suspend the patient. The animal, 

 under the treatment of M. Levrat, kept his foot in the air for nearly three 

 weeks. At the end of that period Jie now and then tried to rest his toe on the 

 litter. Six weeks after the accident, he began to throw some weight on the foot ; 

 and a few days afterwards he was able to go to a pond, about fifty paces from 

 his stable, and where, of his own accord, he took a foot-bath for nearly an hour 

 at a time. At the expiration of another month he was mounted, and went very 

 well at a walking-pace ; he was, however, still lame when he was trotted. 



Another horse, treated by the same surgeon, was soon able to rest on the bad 

 leg, in order to change his position — he was allowed three weeks after that, 

 and then commenced his former daily work— the drawing of a heavy cart. 

 He limped a little when he was trotted ; but did as much slow work as he was 

 ever accustomed to do. 



Fracture op the lower pastern. — Although this bone is much shorter 

 than the upper pastern, there are several instances of fracture of it. The frac- 

 tures of this bone are commonly longitudinal, and often present a lesion of con- 

 tinuity extending from the larger pastern to the coffin-bone. It is frequently 

 splintered, the splinters taking this longitudinal direction. Hurtrel D'Arboval 

 relates three cases of this, and in one of them the bone was splintered into four 

 pieces. In several instances, however, this bone has been separated into eight 

 or ten distinct pieces. When the fracture of the bone is neither compound 



* Bee. de Med. Vet., Nov. 1831. 



