10 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
ciently thick to prevent fractures from falling. Frequently itis done 
in a field close to the stable, in a yard, under a shed, where is made a 
straw bed of variable thickness, according to the hardness of the 
ground upon which the animal is to fall. 
Restraint upon a straw bed is objectionable, since it makes perfect 
asepsis of the wounds difficult; on that account special mattresses 
are recommended. That of Merle, which we employ, is formed of 
four sacks of impermeable cloths, filled with straw and measuring 
three meters in length by sixty centimeters in width and hooked 
together with covered hooks. When the animal is to be turned 
over, the sacks upon which the legs are resting are unhodked and 
placed on the other side of the mattress where the animal will rest. 
The disinfection is easy, the cost of the apparatus trifling. A 
simple awning stretched over the straw bed has the same advantages. 
.Fig. 7.—Throwing of the horse. Common process. (From a photograph.) 
The horse, with an empty stomach, the head held with a bridle 
or a strong halter and covered with a cap, is brought near the bed 
and held by an assistant. Thehobbles, with buckles converging, are 
placed on the four legs—the main hobble fixed on the anterior 
leg opposite the one on which the animal will lie. The chain ofthe 
hobble is then passed through the ring of the hind leg of the same 
side, then through that of the two others and brought back to the 
king hobble. A plate-longe is passed round the body, back of the 
withers. Two assistants hold its extremities. Another grasps the 
tail to pull on it in the same direction as those on the rope of the 
body (fig. 7). In order that the animal may not fall too heavily, 
