OF SOME OF THE BONES OF HORSES. 391 
The two first horses fractured this bone in frolicking on the 
best possible road. 
Fractures of the pastern bone are discoverable by the want of 
support of the foot and the fractured limb : when the toe scarcely 
touches the ground, the foot is in the air. When the hoof is 
taken with one hand, and the other grasps the pastern, and with 
the hand which holds the hoof a semi-rotatory movement is per¬ 
formed, a crepitus will be. heard, occasioned by the rubbing to¬ 
gether of the two fractured surfaces. 
On dissecting the horses which were destroyed on account of 
these fractures, I particularly examined the broken bone : in one 
the fracture was oblique, and it extended almost from one ex¬ 
tremity to the other of the bone ; the superior piece also presented 
three vertical fissures. 
The fracture in the other horse was transversal, very irregular 
at the superior part of the bone ; this part offered two splinters 
of the width of a man’s nail, which proceeded from the superior 
extremity of the bone to its posterior and internal face. 
Case III.—Fracture of the large pastern bone; completely 
cured without suspending the horse. 
The 8th of June, 1829, I was sent for by M. Rouget, inn¬ 
keeper at Ouchy, near Lausanne, to look at ahorse of his which 
had run down a declivity, when harnessed to a light cart. This 
was a carriage horse, of the Holstein breed, of a bay cherry 
colour, and about eight years old. It was placed in a box in the 
stable when I saw it, and appeared to be suffering, and was 
much agitated : the left posterior extremity was retracted, and 
the foot w^as up in the air. I felt the limb all over, and soon per¬ 
ceived that the pastern w^as painful when touched, but I could not 
discover any inflammation : I moved this part every way, but 
still could not detect the fracture ; I could only suspect it. 
Believing that it was not complete, I confined myself to bleeding 
the animal, and prescribing a strict regimen of diet for some days, 
and fomenting the pastern with Goulard’s extract, to prevent 
swellino'. 
Three days afterwards I visited the horse again, and examined 
the diseased part, when I easily discovered the fracture of the 
pastern bone. I judged that this fracture was oblique, and by 
reason of that, it w as not follow ed by so much inflammation. I 
had the whole of the inferior part of the limb fomented with 
arquebusade w’ater, and wrapped a band of very strong linen many 
times round the pastern : I placed another under the fetlock 
joint to support the flexor tendons, and ordered them to bathe 
the fetlock several times a-day wdth the arquebusade water, and 
not to suffer the animal to lie down. He was not suspended. For 
about three weeks he kept his foot in the air ; at the end of that 
