592 
EDITORIAL REMARKS. 
The case of “ Hock Lameness and Fracture of the Tibia,” re- 
lated by Mr. Broad in our Number for July last, elicited from us 
some observations on the subject of concealed or undiscovered 
fracture, which have since received ample elucidation at the hands 
of Messrs. Younghusband and Nelson in our impression for Sep- 
tember, and this for the present month. The mooting of the point 
in question has been productive of this practical good : it has de- 
monstrated that many a fracture exists where no broken bone is 
suspected; and that there are certain kinds of injury in certain 
situations which the veterinary practitioner will do well, prima 
facie at least, always to regard with an eye of suspicion. Kicks 
from horses upon either the arm or the thigh of a quadruped, be 
that quadruped a horse or an ox, a dog or a sheep, armed, as 
horses’ feet are, with iron, and formed as that iron is with a pro- 
jecting edge, are exceeding likely to cause a fracture; at the same 
time, surrounded and closely invested as the radius and tibia are 
with muscles, and braced together as the surrounding muscles are 
by faschia, a fracture of either one or the other bone being, as 
it commonly turns out to be, oblique, is likely to hold together 
long enough, not merely for the animal to walk away afterwards 
into his stable, but even to do work, and, may be, hard and rapid 
work, for a greater or shorter time afterwards. And it is quite 
surprising what amount of labour and speed has been accomplished 
by horses after their limbs have been fractured. Mr. Younghus- 
band mentions an instance (in The VETERINARIAN for July) of 
a cart mare having been ridden by her master a distance of seven- 
teen or eighteen miles to market, going only “ a little lame” at 
first, and, though her lameness increased, still carrying her master 
back “ within a mile of home,” before she “ stumbled and fell,” 
and then for the first time betrayed her fracture. The radius 
proved to be broken two inches below the elbow. Mr. Nelson has 
recorded a case (in the same Veterinarian) to which he was called 
on account of the cart mare — the subject of it — being “lame.” 
He examined the lame limb, in which abscesses had now formed, 
and distinctly heard and felt the crepitation of a broken radius. 
And yet, as he was informed, the mare had been lame eight weeks, 
during the first two of which, “ not being much lame,” she had 
performed pretty well her usual work. She had been in a cart a 
