207 
ON FRACTURES AND DISLOCATIONS. 
Bi/ Mr.W, C. Spooner, Southampton. 
It appears to me to be extremely desirable, that when any 
writer in The Veterinarian takes up an important subject, 
for other writers to communicate their opinions and experience on 
that subject before it is suffered to die away or cease to be im¬ 
pressed on public attention. It is this view of the matter that 
induces me to communicate a few remarks, 8cc., on the above 
subject, to which attention has lately been very properly directed. 
I was more particularly pleased with a paper from Mr. Mayer 
in the last Number, which contains many very useful and judi¬ 
cious observations, and, amongst others, impresses the important 
fact, that fractures may take place without the bones becoming 
immediately displaced thereby. It is, indeed, this fact, as I take 
it, which Mr. Mayer points out, and which most veterinarians are 
aware of, that distinguishes the few cases that are curable from 
the many that are not. For one of the chief reasons why so 
few cases of fractures are cured, is because they are seldom dis¬ 
covered at the moment they occur; and, if so, it is rarely pos¬ 
sible to put the animal immediately in a state of rest, for the 
accident frequently happens when he is far from home. This, 
too, I imagine, is the reason why several bones of the extremities 
are often broken at the same time. I have known the meta¬ 
carpus, both pasterns, and the coffin-bone, all shattered together 
while the animal was working steadily in a coach. 
A few months since I met with a case of fracture of the spine. 
I had not attended the case, but was requested to examine the 
body, in order to ascertain what had been the matter with the 
horse, as the farrier had bled him, and given him some physic ; 
but, in spite of this, as the horse could not get up, he was 
ordered to be killed. The muscles of the loins presented some ap¬ 
pearance of ecchymosis; but, on further examination, I found 
that the spine was completely fractured at the third lumbar ver¬ 
tebra, or between it and the fourth, so that nothing connected 
the parts but muscle and membrane. The spinal cord, before 
the sheath was removed, presented the appearance of being in¬ 
dented at the situation of the fracture; and, on cutting into the 
sheath, a black mass of coagulated blood was seen, four inches 
in length, and destroying the substance and form of the cord. 
I found on inquiry that the horse had been clipjied about three 
weeks before, and that he had afterwards, for the purpose of 
sweating him, been gallopped sharply on rough ground, and pulled 
up suddenly and repeatedly. Since this time he had not gone so 
