OBLIQUE FRACTURE OF INFERIOR MAXILLA. 515 
untoward constitutional symptom, to perform a journey of 
upwards of 444 miles. 
As things are more strikingly displayed when placed in 
juxtaposition, I am induced to trouble you with the following 
instance, which occurred in my practice in April last, of 
fracture of the lower jaw. 
A troop horse of the Artillery was reported on the morning 
of the 16th of that month, as having received a “ kick on the 
head from another horse.” When my attention was directed 
to the patient some effusion, but not much, about the lower 
jaw generally existed, and tumefaction of the submaxillary, 
sublingual, and parotid glands had supervened. No displace- 
ment could be detected, nor crepitation elicited; but the 
horse was so extremely jealous and impatient of being handled, 
or even approached, that the examination was conducted 
under somewhat unfavorable circumstances. 
I prescribed a full dose of cathartic medicine, ordered con- 
stant fomentation and enemata, and enjoined perfect quietude. 
With the exception of the bowels not responding to the 
physic, all went on satisfactorily until the evening of the 18th 
of April, when sympathetic fever set in, which, with 
extreme constitutional irritation, in spite of every counter- 
effort, was fatal in forty-eight hours. 
The post-mortem examination disclosed an extensive 
oblique fracture of the right side of the inferior maxilla, 
which had its origin posteriorly, a little anterior to the 
coronoid process, and immediately below the zygomatic arch ; 
its termination being at the junction of the side and neck of the 
bone, at the superior border, just above the anterior maxillary 
foramen. Its course was obliquely downwards and forwards 
to the posteriormost molar tooth, along the fangs of all the 
grinders, from whence it inclined upwards to reach the 
situation in the neck already described. At the root of the 
fourth molar tooth, where the blow had been inflicted, the 
bone was splintered into several small spiculae, without, 
however, any displacement whatever. 
Not the slightest effort on the part of nature had, 
apparently, been made to reunite the bone, although there 
was some additional vascularity about the periosteum. 
The horse, subsequently to the injury, was only able to move 
his jaw in a horizontal direction ; he was, therefore, entirely 
supported from that period by gruel and other liquids. 
Remarks . — These two cases are, to my mind, examples 
(in addition to the many that might be adduced) of the 
particular diatheses in different subjects. 
For instance, in one constitution we see a peculiar aptitude, 
