LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 333 
by a deformed callus, the union will leave a shortened, 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 foreed 
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 
