LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TBEATMENT. 333 



by a deformed callus, the union will leave a shoi-tened, crooked, or 

 angular limb, and the animal will be disabled. 



If timely assistance can be obtained, and the reduction accom- 

 plished immediately after the occurrence of the accident, that is the 

 best time for it, but if it can not be attended to until inflammation 

 has become established and the parts have become swollen and pain- 

 ful, time must be allowed for the subsidence of these symptoms 

 before attempting the operation. A spasmodic, muscular contraction 

 which sometimes interposes a difficulty may be easily overcome by 

 subjecting the patient to general anesthesia, and need not, therefore, 

 cause any loss of time. A tendency to this may also be overcome 

 by the use of sedatives and antiphlogistic remedies. 



The reduction of the fracture having been accomplished, the prob- 

 lem which follows is that of retention. The parts which have been 

 restored to their natural position must be kept there, without dis- 

 turbance or agitation, until the perfect formation of a callus, and it 

 is here that ample latitude exists for the exercise of ingenuity and 

 skill by the surgeon in the contrivance of the necessary apparatus. 

 One of the most important of the conditions which are available by 

 the surgeon in treating human patients is denied to the veterinarian 

 in the management of those which belong to the animal tribes. This 

 is position. The intelligence of the human patient cooperates with 

 the instructions of the surgeon, in the case of the animal sufferer 

 there is a continual antagonism between the parties, and the forced 

 extension and fatiguing position which must for a considerable 

 period be maintained as a condition of restoration require special 

 and effective appliances to insure successful results. To obtain 

 complete immobility is scarcely possible, and the surgeon must be 

 content to reach a point as near as possible to that which is unattain- 

 able. For this reason, as will subsequently be seen, the use of slings 

 and the restraint of patients in very narrow stalls is much to be 

 preferred to the practice sometimes recommended of allowing entire 

 freedom of motion by turning them loose in box stalls. Temporary 

 and movable apparatus are not usually of difficult use in veterinary 

 practice, but the restlessness of the patients and their unwillingness 

 to submit quietly to the changing of the dressings render it obliga- 

 tory to have recourse to permanent and immovable bandages, which 

 should be retained without disturbance until the process of consoli- 

 dation is complete. 



The materials composing the retaining apparatus consist of oakum, 

 bandages, and splints, with an agglutinating compound which forms 

 a species of cement by which the different constituents are blended 

 • into a consistent mass to be spread upon the surface covering the 

 locality of the fracture. Its components are black pitch, rosin, and 

 Venice turpentine, blended by heat. The dressing may be applied 



