LAMENESS : ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 345 



Treainient. — If there is no displacement, a simple adhesive dress- 

 ing to strengthen and immobilize the parts will be sufficient. A coat 

 of black pitch dissolved with wax and Venice turpentine, and kept 

 in place over the region with oakum or linen bands, will be all the 

 treatment required, especially if the animal is kept quiet in the slings. 



Displacement can not be remedied, and reduction is next to impos- 

 sible. Sometimes an iron plate is applied over the parts and retained 

 by bandages, as in the dressing of Bourgelat (Plate XXX) ; this may 

 be advantageously replaced by a pad of thick leather. In smaller 

 animals the parts are retained by figure-8 bandages, embracing both 

 the normal and the diseased shoulders, crossing each other in the 

 axilla and covered with a coating of adhesive mixture. 



FEACTURES OF THE HUMERUS. 



These are more common in small than in large animals, and are 

 always the result of external traumatism, such as falls, kicks, and 

 collisions. They are generally very oblique, are often comminuted, 

 and though more usually involving the shaft of the bone will in 

 some cases extend to the upper end and into the articular head. 



Symptoms. — There is ordinarily considerable displacement in con- 

 sequence of the overlapping of the broken ends of the bone, and this 

 of course causes more or less shortening of the limb. There will also 

 be swelling, with difficulty of locomotion, and crepitation will be 

 easy of detection. This fracture is always a serious damage to the 

 patient, leaving him with a permanently shortened limb and an 

 incurable, lifelong lameness. 



Treatment.- — If treatjnent is determined • on, it will consist in the 

 reduction of the fracture by means of extension and counter exten- 

 sion, to accomplish which the animal must be thrown. If successful 

 in the reduction, then follows the application and adjustment of the 

 apparatus of retention, which must be of the most perfect and 

 efficient kind. Finally, this, however skillfully contrived and care- 

 fully adapted, will often fail to effect any good purpose whatever. 



FRACTURES OF THE FOREARM. 



A fracture in this region may also involve the radius or the ulna, 

 the latter being broken at times in its upper portion above the radio- 

 ulnar arch at the olecranon. If the fracture occui's at any part of the 

 forearm from the radio-ulnar arch down to the knee, it may involve 

 either the radius alone or the radius and the cubitus, which are there 

 intimately united. 



Cause. — Besides having the same etiology with most of the frac- 

 tures, those of the forearm are, nevertheless, more commonly due to 

 kicks from other animals, especially when crowded together in large 



