380 
AMERICAN VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
mencing to paw, to kick with his hind feet, and to throw his head 
from side to side, and as he was being carefully backed out of his 
stall, to be placed into a box stall, he fell down and passed into a 
deep sleep. After remaining thus about half an hour, he seemed 
to waken, and his circulation, which had fallen to 30 pulsations, 
began to rise, }iis respiration also becoming more accelerated, a 
rather abundant respiration showing itself at the flanks and in the 
scrotal region. 
After making a few ineffectual attempts to rise, he at length, 
with some assistance, succeeded in gaining his feet. He was 
then led to the box stall, when he fell again ; rose again ; en¬ 
tered the stall; moved about in it a few moments, and once 
again fell prostrate, to stand on his feet no more. 
From this moment to the end of the second day, the animal 
never made another attempt to rise, but laid quietly, on his right 
side, and it was only toward the middle of this second day that he 
made any manifestation of pain, by the constant motion of the 
two fore legs. 
The diagnosis could not be doubtful. The animal was suffer¬ 
ing from fracture of the vertebrael column, received during the 
operation, notwithstanding his partial anaesthesia and the mildness 
of the struggles he had made while under the knife. He had 
lived thirty-six hours after the accident. 
On the post-mortem, the lumbar vertebrae were found to be 
the seat of the injuries. The body of the fourth was crushed into 
several pieces; the fifth and sixth were anchylosed and exhibited 
a large bony growth at their inferior face, the same lesion exist¬ 
ing also between the sixth and the first sacral. Besides these, 
the superior spinous process of the last three lumbar, and those 
of the first two sacral, were fractured across their middle. These 
bones, when boiled and cleaned, in order to expose the broken 
fragments, were found in that dry condition to be so brittle as to 
be easily broken by the least pressure of the hand. The sacrum, 
as well as the other vertebrae, had also undergone the rachitic de¬ 
generation, which undoubtedly had predisposed them to be so 
easily fractured. 
