ng
should be performed with great care, and especially so if time enough
has elapsed since its application to allow of a probability of a
commencement of the healing process or the existence of any points of
consolidation. With the original dressing properly applied in its
entirety in the first instance, the entire extremity will have lost all
chance of mobility, and the repairing process may be permitted to
proceed without interference. There will be no necessity and there need
be no haste for removal or change except under such special conditions
as have just been mentioned, or when there is reason to judge that
solidification has become perfect, or for the comfort of the animal, or
for its readaptation in consequence of the atrophy of the limb from want
of use. Owners of animals are often tempted to remove a splint or
bandage prematurely at the risk of producing a second fracture in
consequence of the failure of the callus properly to consolidate.

The method of applying the splints which we have described refers to the
simple variety only. In a compound case the same rules must be observed,
with the modification of leaving openings through the thickness of the
dressing, opposite the wound, in order to permit the escape of pus and
to secure access to the points requiring the application of treatment.

FRACTURE OF CRANIAL BONES.

Fractures of the cranial bones in large animals are comparatively rare,
though the records are not destitute of cases. When they occur, it is as
the result of external violence, the sufferers being usually run-aways
which have come in collision with a wall or a tree or other obstruction,
or it may occur in those which in pulling upon the halter have broken it
with a jerk and been thrown backward, as may occur in rearing too
violently. Under these conditions we have witnessed fractures of the
parietal, of the frontal, and of the sphenoid bones. These fractures may
be of both the complete and the incomplete kinds, which indeed is
usually the case with those of the flat bones, and they are liable to be
complicated with lacerations of the skin, in consequence of which they
are easily brought under observation. When the fact is otherwise and the
skin is intact, however, the diagnosis becomes difficult.

_Symptoms._--The incomplete variety may be unaccompanied with any
special symptoms, but in the complete kind one of the bony plates may be
so far detached as to press upon the cerebral substan