LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT. 849 
assurance of a favorable result as if he had been subjected to the 
most heroic secundum artem doctoring known to science. As a 
case in point, mention may be made of the case of a pregnant bitch 
which suffered a fracture of the upper end of the femur by being 
run over by a light wagon. Her “treatment” consisted in being 
tied up in a large box and let alone. In due time she was delivered 
of a family of puppies, and in three weeks she was running in the 
streets, limping very slightly, and nothing the worse for her 
accident. 
FRACTURE OF THE PATELLA. 
This, fortunately, is a rare accident, and can result only from 
direct violence, as a kick or other blow. The lameness which follows 
it is accompanied with enormous tumefaction of the joint, pain, 
inabiilty to bear weight upon the foot, and finally disease of the 
articulation. Crepitation is absent, because the hip muscles draw 
away the upper part of the bone. The prognosis is unavoidably 
adverse, destruction being the only termination of this incurable 
and very painful injury. Most of the reported cases of cures are 
based upon a wrong diagnosis. 
FRACTURES OF THE TIBIA. 
Of all fractures these are probably more frequently encountered 
than any others among the class of accidents we are considering. As 
with injuries of the forearm of a like character, they may be com- 
plete or incomplete; the former when the bone is broken in the 
middle or at the extremities, and transverse, oblique, or longitudinal. 
The incomplete kind are more common in this bone than in any 
other. 
Symptoms.—Complete fractures are easy to recognize, either with 
or without displacement. The animal is very lame, and the leg is 
either dragged or held clear from the ground by flexion at the stifle, 
while the lower part hangs down. Carrying weight or moving back- 
ward is impossible. There is excessive mobility below the fracture, 
and well-marked crepitation. If there is much displacement, as 
in an oblique fracture, there will be considerable shortening of 
the leg. 
While incomplete fractures can not be recognized in the tibia 
with any greater degree of certainty than in any other bone, there are 
some facts associated with them by which a diagnosis may be justi- 
fied. The hypothetical history of a case may serve as an illustration: 
An animal has received an injury by a blow or a kick on the inside 
of the bone, perhaps without showing any mark. Becoming very 
lame immediately afterwards, he is allowed a few days’ rest. If 
taken out again, he seems to have recovered his soundness, but within 
