28 
FRACTURE OF THE NECK OF THE FEMUR. 
After stating that only four similar cases are on record,—one by 
Rigot, one by Fromage de Feugre, a third by Leblanc and a fourth by 
Dupuy—Mr. ISTocard reports two cases: First. A vigorous animal, 
seven years old, was thrown to be fired for spavin; when the operation 
was finished he was allowed to get up, which he did without effort. 
In going to his stall he tried to jump over a small gutter in front of 
him, slipped violently with his off hind foot, made a bolt forward and 
fell very heavily, In rising, the right hind leg was kept up, the ani¬ 
mal being unable to put it on the ground; he was conducted to his stall 
and in a few minutes the thigh became the seat of an enormous swell¬ 
ing, the leg being very painful to the touch. Diagnosis, rendered 
difficult by the swelling of the parts, was made by the excessive 
mobility of the extremity, its great retraction, the excessive pain 
when the limb was moved and the impossibility of carrying weight 
upon it—the animal died. On post mortem a comminuted fracture of 
the neck of the femur was found extending from the cartilaginous rim 
of the head to the point of insertion of the psoas muscles. The femor¬ 
al artery was entirely lacerated and an enormous clot surrounded the 
parts, seat of the lesion. 
Second. An Irish cob, who had shown lameness on the off hind 
leg for some months, was thrown down to be fired for indurated wind- 
galls of the extremity. After much struggling during the operation, 
the hobbles were removed, but he vainly tried to get up, although no 
fracture of the vertebral column could be detected. He died during 
the night, his death being attributed to nervous exhaustion. The 
post-mortem revealed a fracture of the neck of the femur—the fem¬ 
oral head remaining attached to the cotyloid cavity by the inter- 
articular ligaments.—The neck of the bone, and all the part of the 
internal face of the femur, included between the cartilaginous edge 
' and the superior part of the trochanter were crushed in numerous pieces; 
a thick layer of the bony vegetations round the external face of the 
femur, indicated the repairing process of an old incomplete fracture of 
the bone, thus explaining the lameness of previous time, which had re¬ 
sisted all forms of treatment. (Archives Veter inair es.) 
CASTRATION WITH THE ELASTIC LIGATURE. 
i 
Under this heading Mr. Rossignol of Melun, (France,) reports a 
series of experiments which he had made upon rams and one horse 
