THE EDINBURGH VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
685 
of the bone through its shaft, and into the inferior extremity to 
within little more than an inch of the articulation at the hock. 
This is another instance illustrating the importance of keeping a 
horse perfectly quiet, and taking the weight off the limb after 
severe blows inflicted on the inner surface of the tibia; which 
bone, from being on the inside for a considerable extent merely 
covered by integument, is peculiarly liable to suffer from kicks 
by other horses, and from a variety of causes. It may appear 
strange to some that, in such instances as this, displacement of the 
broken portions of bone should not take place immediately after 
the infliction of the injury. Such, however, is far from being 
always the case, and especially with respect to the tibia. Frac- 
tures of that bone, resulting from blows, are often originally mere 
cracks, extending only a certain length in the bone (partial frac- 
ture); and, although accompanied by more or less lameness, do not, 
until subjected to some sudden stress, become completely broken or 
separated. Again; the bone may be broken through, yet the frac- 
ture extending for a considerable length is not so liable to be 
attended with displacement as if it divided the bone with less 
obliquity, and, if proper means be resorted to, such cases will 
frequently become restored, as in the following one of a horse 
mentioned in a former report, as recovering from an accident of 
this nature, will illustrate. During the period the horse alluded 
to was under treatment, he was, on two different occasions, re- 
leased from the confinement to which he was necessarily subjected, 
in consequence of seeming almost recovered from the accident : 
the result was a return of intense lameness, which required a re- 
course to the former method of treatment, and he was not again 
released so long as any chance of relapse remained. After perfect 
recovery of the limb, the horse was taken home to Jedburgh, 
a distance of fifty miles. In the course of a short time he was 
taken ill with and died of enteritis. 
Mr. Waldie, a veterinary surgeon there (Jedburgh), formerly a 
pupil here, having heard of the nature of the accident from which 
the horse had been suffering in Edinburgh, got possession of 
the tibia, and forwarded it to the College. The seat of fracture 
was made evident by lines of recent osseous deposit on the bone, 
and was similar in its course to that in the case already mentioned, 
extending for a distance of ten inches obliquely along the entire 
shaft of the tibia, following pretty accurately the line of division 
between the popliteus and flexor pedis posticus muscles poste- 
riorly ; then, crossing the internal border of the tibia a little below 
its middle, and extending forwards, it terminated in the inferior 
extremity of the bone midway between the malleoli; from this line 
VOL. XVIII. 5 A 
