SOME CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
275 
SOME CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
We take special pleasure in reproducing in extenso a series 
of cases which Professor Peuch, of the Veterinary School of 
Lyon, published in the Journal of that school, as having oc¬ 
curred at his clinics. What a good example, and how well 
veterinarians that are connected with our American colleges 
would do if they would only follow it.— Editor. 
Lamenesses Due to Traumatisms. —Observation I .—A 
heavy seven-year-old horse, pulling a heavy load, strained 
violently to start it. The effort was so violent that one of 
the chains of the right trace broke suddenly, and as a con¬ 
sequence the left shoulder was severely pressed upon by 
the collar suddenly displaced as the chain broke. An intense 
lameness followed, and the horse was carried to the Lyon 
school. As he arrived, he walked on three legs, the leg 
hanging as if the seat of fracture ; the toe slightly touched the 
ground, the knee was half flexed. The shoulder near the joint, 
the arm and fore-arm of the lame leg, were tumefied, warm, 
painful, especially on the anterior part of the arm ; there was no 
solution of continuity of the skin. No crepitation was detected 
by moving the leg in all directions. In the presence of these 
symptoms and the history, a diagnosis was made of traumatic 
myositis , with probable lesions of the branches of the brachial 
plexus, which go to the muscles of the shoulder and of the arm. 
The case was thought serious on account of the excessive lame¬ 
ness, the extent of the inflammatory swelling, the rapidity of its 
formation; though all danger of septic infection was absent. 
This diagnosis and prognosis was made before the students, with 
the statement that if the animal was left at rest for a long time 
the case would likely end in recovery. The animal, being of 
great value, was placed under treatment,—cold douches over the 
tumefied region. This, after two weeks, brought on the disap¬ 
pearance of the swelling. The animal was in good condition ; 
but the lameness was as great as at the entrance into the hos¬ 
pital. There was besides a well-marked muscular atrophy oppo¬ 
site the subspinatus fossa of the scapula. The hydrotherapic 
treatment was replaced by electricity, faradization. At first the 
applications were well supported, and the atrophied muscles 
contracted slightly. But they, by degrees, became painful, and 
soon the animal struggled and fought so much that they had to 
