LAMENESS: ITS CAUSES AND TREATMENT, 351 
No region of the body affords better facilities for the application of 
treatment, and the prognosis on this account is usually favorable. 
We recall a case, however, which proved fatal, though under excep- 
tional circumstances. The patient was a valuable stallion of highly 
nervous organization, with a compound fracture of one of the cannon 
bones, and his unconquerable resistance to treatment, excited by the 
intense pain of the wound, precluded all chance of recovery, and 
ultimately caused his death. 
Treatment.—The general form of treatment for these lesions will 
not differ from that which has been already indicated for other frac- 
tures. Reduction, sometimes necessitating the casting of the patient; 
coaptation, comparatively easy by reason of the subcutaneous situa- 
tion of the bone; retention, by means of splints and bandages— 
applied on both sides of the region, and reaching to the ground as 
in fractures of the forearm—these are always indicated. We have 
obtained excellent results by the use of a mold of thick gutta-percha, 
composed of two sections and made to surround the entire lower part 
of the leg as in an inflexible case. 
FRACTURE OF THE FIRST PHALANX. 
The hind extremity is more liable than the fore to this injury. It 
is usually the result of a violent effort, or of a sudden misstep or 
twisting of the leg, and may be transverse, or, as has usually been the 
case in our experience, longitudinal, extending from the upper artic- 
ular surface down to the center of the bone, and generally oblique 
and often comminuted. The symptoms are the swelling and tender- 
ness of the region, possibly crepitation; a certain abnormal mobility ; 
an excessive degree of lameness, and in some instances a dropping 
back of the fetlock, with perhaps a straightened or upright condi- 
tion of the pastern. 
The difficulty of reduction and coaptation in this accident, and the 
probability of bony deposits, as of ringbones, resulting in lameness, 
are circumstances which tend to discourage a favorable prognosis. 
The treatment is that which has been recommended for all frac- 
tures, so far as it can be applied. The iron splint which has been 
mentioned gives excellent results in many instances, but if the frac- 
ture is incomplete and without displacement, a form of treatment less 
energetic and severe should be attempted. One case is within our 
knowledge in which the owner lost his horse by his refusal to subject 
the animal to treatment, the post-mortem revealing only a simple 
fracture with very slight displacement. 
FRACTURES OF THE SECOND PHALANX (CORONET). 
Though these are generally of the comminuted kind, there are 
often conditions associated with them which justify the surgeon in 
