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preferred to that of securing apposition by means of plaster of Paris. In 
the case of a limb, when it is purposed to employ splints, one is placed on 
each side of the injured member ; and then a bandage covered with plaster 
of Paris or starch is wound not too firmly round the whole. It is well, before 
adjusting the splints, to place tow or lint around the injured limb, so as to 
fill up the gaps and irregularities of the surface. When there is an external 
wound, this must be left exposed to the air, and thus an aperture corresponding 
with the open injury must be left in the splint. In most instances, it will be 
necessary to allow the splints or charge to remain in place for six to eight 
weeks. At the end of this time, they may be removed, and bandages should 
then be firmly applied. The animal cannot be exercised, until after the 
lapse of at least sixteen to eighteen weeks, after sustaining the injury. Ifthe 
animal manifests great pain, an ounce or two of tincture of opium may be 
administered. During the treatment of the injury, the bowels should be 
regulated by the administration of an occasional dose of physic; and the 
animal should be fed on a nutritious laxative diet, consisting of oatmeal 
gruel, grass, and carrots. 
The fractures we most commonly meet with are those of the pastern 
bone, skull, thigh bone, tibia, and back. Fracture of the pastern bones 
generally occurs as the result of hard and fast riding and galloping, over 
irregular ground. Sometimes a pastern bone is broken in one part, and in 
other cases in several. The long pastern bone is more often fractured than 
the short. This injury, contrary to what might be anticipated, is not in every 
instance attended by marked signs. Lameness, however, in most cases is 
very pronounced, and the poor animal is not able to bring his foot down to 
the ground. Distortion of the parts may or may not be manifest, but pain 
and swelling are generally present. In those instances where the bone is 
broken in several places, treatment is generally not successful ; but when only 
broken in one place, and when little or no displacement occurs, recovery is 
to be expected. At the same time it may be mentioned that an animal so 
injured is, after recovery, rarely fit for fast work again. The animal should 
be placed in slings in the first place, and the shoe should be removed. The 
best method of treating the injury is to fill up the hollow behind the pastern 
with tow charged with pitch, and then to wind a narrow bandage nine or ten 
feet long similarly charged around the limb. When the bone has united, 
-as it probably will have done, in the course of about five or six weeks, the 
charge may be removed; and, if there’ be much swelling, owing to the new 
bone thrown out, the part should be smartly blistered. 
By broken back, we understand fracture of one of the vertebrze or bones 
of the back, a most serious injury, generally caused by a violent fall. 
Sometimes, as we mentioned in treating of sprains, broken back is difficult 
to distinguish from sprain of the muscles of the back. The former is 
necessarily of far greater danger, and, though often a remediable accident, 
when the fracture involves one of the vertebral bones, from which the ribs 
extend to encircle the chest cavity, it is nearly always fatal, when the column 
of bones is broken in the region of the loins. In the latter case, the paralysis, 
