COMPOUND FRACTURE OF THE LOWER JAW. 
83 
The man that led him also said his bowels were .rattling ; we, 
therefore, expected that his physic would soon purge him. He 
appeared free from pain, and walked as well as he had done any 
of the other times that he had been out during the day. 
I had him brought into his box, and told Mr. Carr that I was 
certain there was a rupture of some part. He had not been in the 
• box many minutes before he appeared to have lost first the use 
of one hind leg, then of the other. He began to reel, and fell, 
or rather sat, on his quarters. He made several ineffectual at- 
tempts to raise himself, and then fell on his side and struggled a 
little, and died at eight o’clock. 
Examination , at eleven next morning. — I found in the abdo- 
men a great quantity of fluid and faeces. The caecum appeared 
like a blown bladder, and contained no fluid. The colon at its 
sigmoid flexure had a rupture about seven or eight inches in 
length, its peritoneal tunic was much inflamed, and, just round 
the edges of the rupture, it was in a state of gangrene. The 
stomach was full of half masticated hay and whole oats, and the 
villous coat was slightly congested. All the other viscera were 
healthy. 
What was the cause of the rupture 1 The horse was doing 
gentle work. He was what is called a half-bred or cocktail ; i. e., 
they could not prove him thorough-bred. He was three years 
old, and intended to hunt a few times this winter, so as to qua- 
lify him to start for the hunters’ stakes next year. 
I can account for it no other way than this. In his stomach 
and intestines I should think there were, at least, a peck of oats 
that had not been crushed at all by the molares. Their sharp 
points might cause a great deal of irritation, and, while the horse 
was struggling, the part might become ruptured. His mola.es, 
were sharp on their edges, and had cut his cheeks very much in 
his endeavours to masticate his food. 
SEVERE CASE OF COMPOUND FRACTURE OF THE 
LOWER JAW OF A HORSE. 
Treated by Mr. Mavor, U.S’. 
[Communicated by Mr. Kerr, V.S., 40, New Bond Street.] 
A bay gelding, the property of Thomas Hood, Esq., was ad- 
mitted into Mr. Mavor’s infirmary, on the 13th of October last, 
with compound fracture of the lower jaw. The accident was 
occasioned by the horse getting his incisors entangled in the 
latch of the stable door, and the force used to extricate himself 
produced the mischief in question. 
The injury took place within half an inch of the first molar 
