122 FRIGHTFUL FRACTURE OF THE HEAD. 
the animal with one side of his head ail but torn away, and the 
eye of the same side hanging almost out of its socket, my mo- 
mentary impression was that a bullet was the only resource. 
Indeed, my assistant, who was present, holding the horse by 
the head, had in his other hand a loaded pistol, already pre- 
pared for the act of demolition; concluding in his own mind, as 
almost every one present had done, that, from the horrible 
aspect the animal’s head presented, I could come to no other 
determination. 
Concurring, however, after a more attentive inspection on 
my part, in the kind counsel of my friend, Mr. Tardrew — the 
assistant-surgeon of my regiment — who was present, I resolved 
to subject the animal to treatment, for a time at least, in order 
to learn how the system would bear such a shock, and at the 
same time ascertain how far Nature would employ her wonder- 
ful powers in the reparation of such serious and alarming injury ; 
I therefore had the horse led into his stall in the stable in which 
he had been standing, and proceeded at once to a minute and 
careful examination of the lesion. I found the malar and la- 
chrymal bones to be extensively fractured, and the upper por- 
tions of the superior maxillary bones to be literally smashed to 
pieces; indeed, what remained entire of the maxillary bone 
itself was retained in its place only by the muscles enveloping 
it, assisted by the support of the buccal membrane ; the molar 
teeth being readily carried from side to side according as the 
loose branch of the jaw-bone was moved by the hand inward 
or outward, owing, as it appeared, to some fracture we were 
unable to discover. The wound had opened a terrific chasm 
in the side of the head, from the circumstance of its having ex- 
posed the caverns of the frontal and maxillary sinuses, added 
to the laying bare of a portion of the nasal fossa of that side. 
Owing to the floor of the orbit being broken, and having fallen 
downward, the eye-ball, suspended by its membrane and 
muscles, was hanging loosely in situ , lower than ordinary, 
and in this position admitted of the hand being introduced un- 
derneath it, in which way it could with ease be elevated into 
its proper place. Under these circumstances I had no hopes of 
saving the eye. The roof of the frontal sinus had fortunately 
guarded the brain from injury. Neither were there any blood- 
vessels of magnitude or nerves of importance found injured; 
although, of course, several small vessels and nervous fibrils 
must have been torn through, or sadly mutilated. 
Fortunately, the supra-orbital foramen — which in the horse 
is so very low down — escaped. The fracture ran along the 
interspace between it and the orbit, being bounded inferiorlv 
and outwardly by the superior maxillary spine, and inwardly 
