CHAPTER XI 



The Osseous System 



TRAUMATIC LESIONS. 



Fractures 



FBAGTURES IN GENERAL. 



Some interesting statistics of fractures have been tabulated by 

 Froehner based on seventy-four thousand eight hundred and 

 seventy-two cases of sickness and accidents treated by the staff of 

 the Berlin Institution between the years 1886 and 1894. In this 

 number one thousand six hundred and ninety-three were fractures, 

 making a percentage of 2.3, or in other words, in every JEorty dogs 

 treated, one had sustained a fracture. 



Fractures of the extremities were most common, amounting 

 to ninety per cent of the whole, and one-half of all the fractures 

 were observed to have occurred in the larger of the long bones. 



The prognosis of fractures in general must be regarded as 

 very good, eighty-five per cent of Froehner's cases having com- 

 pletely recovered, the remaining fifteen per cent having comprised 

 the complicated, comminuted and pelvic fractures. In one-hundred 

 and fifteen cases recorded by Stockfleth ninety-two completely re- 

 covered. Froehner regards the prognosis of fractures in the dog 

 as four times more favorable than in the horse. 



The causes of fractures are manifold, but result mostly .from 

 traumatism, such as run-overs, blows from clubs or balls, kicks 

 from horses, falls from heights on to hard surfaces, bites of other 

 dogs, gun-shots, and even extreme muscular action on the part of 

 the animal itself, as occasionally occurs to the olecranon. 



Various local or general conditions such as necrosis and old age 

 may exert a predisposing influence on the resisting power of the 

 bones. 



Fractures may be partial or complete, compound or comminuted. 



Partial fractures commonly occur as fissures, splinters, per- 



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