FRACTURED RADIUS SUPERVENING A KICK. 267 
the hospital with^a small, contused wound on the inside of 
the near fore leg, caused by a kick from another horse. The 
animal, although lame, was able to walk from the parade 
ground to the infirmary stables, a distance of half a mile. On 
arrival I examined him, but found no crepitus or other sign of 
fracture, and therefore gave directions for such treatment as 
is usual in cases of injury from kicks. The wound was 
situated about six inches below the superior extremity of the 
radius. 
, The patient progressed favorably for several days, oc¬ 
casionally resting part of his weight upon the injured leg, and 
not the slightest symptom of constitutional disturbance was 
to be seen. On the sixth day, however, I was sent for 
suddenly to see the horse, and on my arrival at the hospital 
I found him lying down. The peculiar position of the near 
fore leg at once attracted my attention, and upon examination 
I discovered that it was fractured. The ends of the broken 
bone could be distinctly heard grating against each other 
when I moved the leg. I applied for a board of officers, and 
had the horse shot at once. 
On making a post-mortem examination I found the radius 
fractured obliquely right through its shaft, and about an inch 
above the spot where the kick had been received. The bone 
was in two pieces. In addition to this oblique fracture of 
the body of the radius, there was a crack longitudinally through 
its inner face, extending from the seat of injury upwards into 
the upper (superior) extremity, and a corresponding one 
running downwards as far as the inferior extremity. 
From inquiries I made I learnt that, just before I was 
sent for, the horse had made a sudden bound sideways, to 
avoid the bite of another horse who had got his head loose, 
and that from that moment he appeared to have lost the use 
of the near fore leg. Of course the bone must have been 
fractured in the first instance by the kick, but is it not some¬ 
what singular that no displacement should have taken place 
during the half-mile walk to the hospital, and that the horse 
rested his weight upon the leg for five days prior to this 
sudden bound of his, which appears to have brought matters 
to a crisis ? 
It is just possible that if the patient had been placed in 
slings at first and kept thus for a month, he might have re¬ 
covered. But slings I have never seen in India, and I have 
never been able to procure any from the Government stores. 
Luckily this horse w’as no great loss, as he would have been 
cast in a couple of months for being old ancl w orn out. 
Notwithstanding the very severe nature of the injury which 
