416 
MISCELLANEA. 
jured limb, and immediately afterwards caught up the limb, con- 
tracting it upon the abdomen, as though the kick had caused him 
a fit of intense pain. We were instantly called to his aid, and 
found him standing upon three legs, evidently suffering greatly. 
On being backed for the purpose of examination, a little way out 
of his stall, he absolutely hopped, and could hardly be forced to 
do even this. He quite dreaded any manipulation of the limb : 
we had to twitch him even before he would submit to our touching 
it. This done, the secret became but too palpable — the tibia was 
broken ; and dissection, post-mortem — for the horse was imme- 
diately shot — shewed that the fracture, which was an oblique one, 
was manifestly of several days’ standing. 
Cases like these teach us caution in our treatment and prog- 
nosis of injuries resulting from kicks and blows upon bones. In 
Mr. Broad’s case, diseased as the bones were in structure, there 
were no hopes to be entertained of any reparation of the fracture. 
But in the case last mentioned (of the troop-horse), holding to- 
gether so long as the broken pieces of bone did, and in spite of 
the walking exercise the horse took daily, it may become a ques- 
tion whether, had they not at length been separated by violence, 
they might not have had callus thrown around them, and in the end 
have become united. On the other hand, suppuration and abscess 
might have ensued, and the case, after all, have had a fatal issue. 
MISCELLANEA. 
A Man who can make himself Taller at will. 
At a meeting of the Academy of Medicine in Paris, a man was 
exhibited, who possesses the very singular power of making him- 
self two inches taller or shorter at will. Standing erect, he can 
elongate the spine and contract it again by moving the sacrum, 
which plays like a wedge between the bones of the pelvis. When 
he was a child a carriage passed over his body, to the injury re- 
ceived at which time he attributes the power of executing this 
singular manoeuvre. He had reached the age of forty . — Gazette 
des Hospitaux . 
