CLINICAL CHRONICLES. 
387 
CLINICAL CHRONICLES. 
By A. Liautard, M.D., H.F.R.C.V.S. 
The magnitude of the Responsibility of the veterinarian when 
called upon to perform surgical operations is probably not suffi¬ 
ciently understood nor appreciated either by the owners of ani¬ 
mals or even, sometimes, by the young practitioner, who often, in 
his desire to secure for his record an opportunity to operate, for¬ 
gets to advise his employer of the dangers to which his animal 
is about to be exposed, not only by the operation itself but also 
by the manipulation of the means of restraint which he may be 
obliged to employ. It is in that responsibility that the duties of 
the veterinary surgeon become equal, if not superior to those of 
the human surgeon. When the latter has an operation to per¬ 
form he has his patient brought before him and placed under the 
influence of ether or chloroform, and there is for him but little 
danger of accidents resulting either from moral influence or from 
the struggles of his patient. The veterinarian, on the contrary, 
has seldom occasion to have recourse to perfect anesthesia, but 
very often is obliged to secure his patient in such a manner that 
by his movements the operation is not rendered more difficult, or 
the life of the operator or of his assistant endangered. Large 
animals have to be cast, and in that position, though their move¬ 
ments and struggles are somewhat limited, they are not so per - 
fectly secured that they cannot inflict upon themselves severe 
injuiies, either to the soft or hard tissues. Amongst the most 
serious accidents likely to occur is that commonly known as 
broken back, or fracture of the vertebral column. When this 
accident takes place (and it may, notwithstanding the greatest 
caution having been employed) the post mortem examination 
generally reveals a fracture of one or several of the vertebrae. 
The fracture which is most commonly met with is at the forward 
part of the dorsal region, the seventeenth or eighteenth dorsal 
vertebra being the seat of the lesion, while again, it may go as 
far back as the lines where the first or second lumbar vertebrae 
are fractured. The following case, recorded by M. F. Hanshew, 
