448 SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF DISLOCATION OF 
crushed; and the parts beyond this lesion, which receive their 
nervous influence from the spinal cord, will necessarily be para- 
lyzed. The almost unavoidable consequence of this will be death, 
or the cure will be so long in effecting, so uncertain, and, after all, 
so incomplete, that the veterinary surgeon who undertakes it will 
scarcely do right, as it regards his employer or himself. 
We can easily judge of the extreme violence which is neces- 
sary in order to separate two osseous surfaces so intimately united 
as those of the cervico-vertebral articulations ; and we are authorized 
to conclude, that if there is not already fracture, compression, or 
crushing of the spinal marrow, and, consequently, paralysis, one or 
the other of these lesions will inevitably occur in the violent efforts 
which we are compelled to make in order to restore the bones to 
their normal situation. Doubtless, luxation of the cervical verte- 
brae is not impossible ; but it is much more rare, and seldomer 
demonstratively proved, than some veterinarians have imagined, 
who have mistaken for it a muscular extension, more or less vio- 
lent, caused, perhaps, by sudden and determined efforts to make 
the horse carry his head in some peculiar or fanciful w r ay, or to 
cause it to be outrageously extended or flexed. Supposing that, 
from one or another of these causes, luxation has really taken 
place, and is extended at once to two articulations of the verte- 
brae, life will be inevitably extinguished in an instant. Life will 
be less compromised, if one of the two oblique apophyses should 
be separated from the articular surface which corresponds with it, 
and the injury is limited to this, for the displaced vertebra will 
elevate itself a little, and the spinal canal will be scarcely con- 
tracted. This accident would be recognized by the acute pain 
which the animal feels at the slightest touch of the part, or attempt 
at exploration of the nature and extent of the accident, and espe- 
cially by the abnormal situation of the head, which is directed to 
and remains fixed on the side opposite to the seat of injury*. In 
such cases, prudence would counsel the practitioner to abstain from 
the least effort to restore the head and neck to their proper direc- 
tion, for the animal would instantly fall and die. All that can 
be done, if there is any wish to attempt to save the animal, is to 
endeavour to calm the local pain, and prevent irritation, by rest, 
and bleeding, and other measures of a similar tendency. 
We will not content ourselves with citing numerous cases of 
luxation of the cervical vertebrae : it is more satisfactory to have 
them reduced and cured. But in many of the cases in which 
some of the vertebra are supposed to be dislocated, has this been 
actually the case, or may we not refer to an account given by 
* This was precisely the ease with Mr. Ion’s heifer ; but the advice that 
follows was contradictory to his experience. — Y. 
