FRACTURE OF THE PELVIS. 
313 
having for its special object the overshadowing and stifling 
of 6 invisible foes’ no less ‘to the human race 5 than to Brute 
kind at large. 55 
CASES Of FRACTURE OF THE PELVIS. 
By Jas. Western, M.R.C.V.S., Horse Artillery, Bangalore. 
Case 1. — On the 19th June, 1854, I was called to visit a 
patient in hospital, at half-past 7 p.m., reported to have violent 
colic. 
The farrier-major’s history was, that the horse had been 
brought from his lines about a quarter of an hour before, and 
that the attack was so violent, that he threw himself down at 
his picket, and lamed himself by the fall, as he came limping 
to the hospital with the off hind leg, .and that directly he got 
into the stable he lay down. He also said that he had given 
him a draught composed of Spt. Ether. Nit. et Tr. Opii, 
as an antispasmodic. 
I found my patient, a black New South Wales gelding, of the 
C troop, lying stretched out on his off side, breathing rapidly, 
and now and then raising his head and looking anxiously to 
his flank. The pulse was imperceptible, the extremities cold, 
and the entire surface of the body covered with the clammy^ 
sweat of death. 
There could be no doubt that internal hemorrhage existed, 
and that death was close at hand. I knew the horse to be a 
remarkably timid animal at his picket, frequently running 
back upon and breaking either his head rope or tearing up 
his picket-peg ; I, therefore, suspected at once that he had 
thrown himself down in the usual manner, and possibly rup- 
tured the liver. The lameness reported to me I thought 
might depend on a severe contusion of the limb. He died a 
very few minutes after my arrival, but was not examined till 
next morning. 
I found the abdomen was nearly filled with clotted blood, and 
that the pelvis was fractured, in a direct line with the symphisis 
pubis, at about an inch from it on the right side. A second 
fracture ran upwards into the hip-joint. The bladder was 
torn to shreds by the broken bones. He had walked between 
two and three hundred yards from his picket to the hospital 
with these extensive fractures. 
Case 2. — In July, 1855, His Excellency the Commander- 
