496 
PROBABLE FRACTURE OF THE ILEUM. 
PROBABLE FRACTURE OF THE ILEUM. 
By James Western, Y.S. Madras Horse Artillery. 
Dear Sir, — Will you allow me to solicit your opinion on 
the following case, which is not without interest. 
On the morning of the 7th current, I was requested to 
visit a horse that had suddenly fallen lame in a gallop on the 
race-course, where he was in training for our approaching 
meeting, and was too lame to be brought to me. 
I found the horse in the rubbing-house. He is a chesnut 
arab, four years old, a recent purchase from a dealer’s lot, and 
has a large curb on the off hock. The lameness is in the 
near hind leg, which is slightly resting on the toe ; the pain 
is intense, evident by the testicle of that side being forcibly 
drawn up to the groin, accompanied by its incessant jacti- 
tation. The history of the case is simple : — until the present 
morning he had had no work faster than an ordinary canter, 
now, however, for about f ths of a mile he had his head, to go his 
own pace, with a steady pull upon him. Our turn in to the 
straight running is half a mile from home; he was pulled into 
a canter before he rounded the corner , and was some distance up 
the straight running , when his rider, Lt. G 1, Horse Artillery, 
felt him suddenly drop behind, “ as if his hind legs were 
going from under him/’ which he fancied was a failure of 
the curby hock. I could find no cause for the lameness , so 
determined on walking him to my hospital, no great distance. 
At first he would not put the lame leg to the ground, but in 
turning in the stall, absolutely made a pivot of the off hind 
foot; on first moving into a walk he did not touch the ground 
with the near hind, but after a few paces the foot came down, 
although there never was more than its own weight put upon 
it. I put the leg, up to the hock, in a bucket of warm water, 
and by woollen cloths wrapped round the thigh and carried 
over the loins and quarters, kept up a continued fomentation 
for four or five hours: having first, I should say, removed the 
shoe, examined the foot, which was sound, and administered a 
ball of Diuretic mass, ,^j ; Ext. Belladonnae, ^j. Up to a late 
hour of the afternoon, I was as much in the dark as ever as to 
the cause of lameness. I gave a full purgative. On the following 
morning Mr. Hurford, Y.S. 15th Hussars, kindly joined me in 
a further examination. This was about 7 a. m., when, after a 
cool night, and a lapse of twenty hours since the accident, it 
was reasonably to be expected some signs of damage would 
be found. But no ! from the middle of his hock down to his 
