306 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



he is carried, it must be by means of a wagon, a truck, or an ambu- 

 lance; the latter, being designed and adapted to the purpose, would, 

 of course, be the preferable vehicle. As a precaution which should 

 never be overlooked, a temporary dressing should first be applied. 

 This may be so done as for the time to answer all the purpose of the 

 permanent adjustment and bandaging. Without thus securing the 

 patient, a fracture of an inferior degree may be transformed to one of 

 the severest kind, and, indeed, a curable changed to an incurable 

 injury. We recall a case in which a fast trotting horse, after running 

 away in a fright caused by the whistle of a locomotive, was found on 

 the road limping with excessive lameness in the off fore leg, and 

 walked with comparative ease some 2 miles to a stable before being 

 seen by a surgeon. His immediate removal in an ambulance was 

 advised, but before that vehicle could be procured the horse lay down, 

 and upon being made to get upon his feet was found with a well- 

 marked comminuted fracture of the os suffraginis, with considerable 

 displacement. The patient, however, after long treatment, made a 

 comparatively good recovery and though with a large bony deposit, 

 a ringbone, was able to trot among the forties. 



The two obvious indications in cases of fracture are redudtion, or 

 replacement, and retention. 



In an incomplete fracture, where there is no displacement, the 

 necessity of reduction does not exist. With the bone kept in place 

 by an intact periosteum, and the fragments secured by the unin- 

 jured fibrous and ligamentous structure which surrounds them, there 

 is no dislocation to correct. Reduction is also at times rendered 

 impossible by the seat of the fracture itself, by its dimensions alone, 

 or by the resistance arising from muscular contraction. This is 

 illustrated even in small animals, as in dogs, by the exceeding diffi- 

 culty encountered in bringing the ends of a broken femur or humerus 

 together, the muscular contraction being even in these animals suffi- 

 ciently forcible to renew the displacement. 



It is generally, therefore, only fractures of the long bones, and 

 then at points not in close proximity to the trunk, that may be con- 

 sidered to be amenable to reduction. It is true that some of the 

 more superficial bones, as those of the head, of the pelvis, and of 

 the thoracic walls, may in some cases require special manipulations 

 and appliances for their retention in their normal positions, hence 

 the treatment of these and of a fractured leg can not be the same. 



The methods of accomplishing reduction vary with the features of 

 each case, the manipulations being necessarily modified to meet dif- 

 ferent circumstances. If the displacement is in the thickness of the 

 bone, as in transverse fracture, the manipulation of reduction con- 

 sists in applying constant pressure upon one of the fragments, while 

 the other is kept steady in its place, the object of the pressure being 

 Digitized by Microsoft® 



