cle could be procured the horse lay down,
and upon being made to get upon his feet was found with a well-marked
comminuted fracture of the os suffraginis, with considerable
displacement. The patient, however, after long treatment, made a
comparatively good recovery and though with a large, bony deposit, a
ringbone, was able to trot in the forties.

The two obvious indications in cases of fracture are reduction, or
replacement, and retention.

In an incomplete fracture, where there is no displacement, the necessity
of reduction does not exist. With the bone kept in place by an intact
periosteum, and the fragments secured by the uninjured fibrous and
ligamentous structure which surrounds them, there is no dislocation to
correct. Reduction is also at times rendered impossible by the seat of
the fracture itself, by its dimensions, alone, or by the resistance
arising from muscular contraction. That is illustrated even in small
animals, as in dogs, by the exceeding difficulty encountered in
bringing together the ends of a broken femur or humerus, the muscular
contractions being even in these animals sufficiently forcible to renew
the displacement.

It is generally, therefore, only fractures of the long bones, and then
at points not in close proximity to the trunk, that may be considered to
be amenable to reduction. It is true that some of the more superficial
bones, as those of the head, of the pelvis, and of the thoracic walls,
may in some cases require special manipulations and appliances for their
retention in their normal positions; hence the treatment of these and of
a fractured leg can not be the same.

The methods of accomplishing reduction vary with the features of each
case, the manipulations being necessarily modified to meet different
circumstances. If the displacement is in the thickness of the bone, as
in transverse fracture, the manipulation of reduction consists in
applying constant pressure upon one of the fragments, while the other is
kept steady in its place, the object of the pressure being the
reestablishment of the exact coincidence of the two bony surfaces. If
the displacement has taken place at an angle it will be sufficient in
order to effect the reduction to press upon the summit, or apex, of the
angle until its disappearance indicates that the parts have been brought
into coaptation. This method is often practiced in the treatment of a
fractured rib. In a longitudinal fracture, or when the fragme