498 
DISLOCATION OF THE FEMUR. 
complicated, except in ill nourished young animals, in which 
the articular ends of bone are deficient in breadth, and in 
which the ligaments readily yield and lengthen, when con- 
tinuously on the stretch. Spontaneous dislocations of the 
fetlock-joints in colts are thus explained ; and 1 have seen 
both elbow-joints in a young terrier luxated, without fracture 
or laceration of the soft textures. 
If the shoulder- or hip-joints in horse or cattle be the seat 
of luxation, whether partial or complete, there is invariably 
some superadded lesion, and it is of the greatest practical 
utility to study these complications, with the view of recog- 
nising their nature and extent in the living animal. I purpose, 
therefore, drawing your attention to this subject to-day, as 
you have w itnessed, w ith me, an interesting case of dislocation 
of the hip-joint, the history of which I w ill now 7 relate. 
In the afternoon of last Monday (June 30th) Mr. John 
Cairns, of Gilmore Park Dairy, called upon me to attend a 
cow’ that had met with an accident, through which the off 
hind leg was rendered perfectly useless, as if paralysed. I at 
once visited the animal, and gleaned that on the previous 
afternoon, as the cow s entered the byre on their return from 
the fields, my patient w 7 as walking quietly along, but, on 
turning into her stall, she slipped with her off hind foot, in 
getting on to the elevated part of the brick pavement, on 
which the cows are made to lie. A drain about six inches 
deep runs along behind the animals, to carry off both faeces 
and urine, and into this drain the foot slipped. The cow 7 , in 
missing her step, fell, struggled, and rose again, but on three 
legs. She stood some time, and then lay down for the w hole 
night ; on the morning of Monday, Mr. Cairns tried to sling 
her, but failed in all attempts to keep her in the erect posture. 
When I saw* the cow she w as tying comfortably on her near 
side, apparently in no pain, with the injured limb totally 
useless ; its muscles were flaccid, and the tendo Achillis 
quite relaxed. The femur was at an acute angle to the ilium. 
The trochanter major had slipped downwards, backwards, 
and inw 7 ards, so that the stifle-joint w 7 as turned outwards, 
and there was a flatness or hollow 7 aspect about the muscles of 
the upper third of the thigh ; there w 7 as also slight tumefaction 
over the hip-joint. The lower part of the limb was stretched 
out, and the distance from hip to toe w 7 as greater than on the 
opposite side by nearly three inches. 
It was evident that the trochanter did not stand out promi- 
nently, as in the normal condition of the part, but was draw n 
backwards and imvards from displacement of the head of the 
femur; the latter, I immediately thought, must be lodged in 
