438 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
Notwithstanding their serious nature, numerous cases have been fol- 
lowed by recovery. Unfortunately, the uncertainty of the result has 
decided against the treatment, and animals are often destroyed. 
As for all other fractures of the extremities, the opinion of the practi: 
tioners, in the use of slings, is divided. Some, like Tassy and Portal,. 
reject them entirely; they say it is dangerous, tiresome to the pati- 
ents, causing gangrenous accidents and fever, which induce the animals. 
to hang in them. Yet most veterinarians continue to employ them.. 
It is only in exceptional cases, with very irritable subjects, as the 
stallion ‘“ Physician,” treated by S. Bouley, that it is better to leave: 
them free. : 
Therefore, in. general, the fracture must be reduced, dressing of con-. 
tention applied and the patient slung. If there is overlapping of the- 
fragments, he must be cast and placed under anesthesia, being careful, in. 
reducing the fracture, to give the foot a good direction. 
With a simple wadded dressing, well applied, Salchow has obtained a. 
complete success. Portal has recommended pitch. The coaptation made). 
the fractured region was coated in its whole extent with liquefied pitch, upon. 
which a thick coat of oakum was laid; four wooden splints held with turns. 
of rollers finished the dressing. With this bandage, Portal has cured a mule- 
affected with an open comminuted fracture. After two months, the sub- 
ject was slightly lame; a points firing was applied over the seat of the 
fracture, the lameness disappeared and the patient resumed work. 
In a horse having a complete fracture of the radius, without displace~ 
ment, Tassy enveloped the leg (from the axilla to the middle of the can- 
non) with oakum dipped into a mixture of eggs and burnt alum. Four 
wooden splints, wrapped up in oakum and covered with Venice turpentine. 
were placed on the four faces of the leg, the external one extending from 
the shoulder-to the coronet, and the whole was held in place by turns of 
rollers sewed together. The patient, possessing an extraordinary instinct: 
of preservation, would lie down carefully, without putting the slightest. 
weight on its fractured leg. After thirty-six days, the apparatus was taken. . 
off; the callus was very large and made the animal very lame. Firing: 
was necessary. ‘The lameness disappeared entirely. 
Rossignol, treating a simple fracture of the radius in a four years colt, 
first surrounded the leg with oakum dipped in a mixture of starch, white of 
eggs and powdered alum. Four wooden splints, going not beyond the 
extremities of the forearm, were fixed by turns of a roller, impregnated. 
with the same sticking mixture. A wound of the external face of the knee 
was dressed with tincture of aloes, through a window made in the corre-. 
sponding part of the bandage. This dressing was taken. off the fortieth 
day; the callus was very large and the forearm atrophied, but, after a 
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