Fracture of the radius, or fore-arm, like most other fractures of the bones of the limbs, is the result of kicks and blows, or false steps, or it may arise in the struggles to recover the leg from some fixed position. A blow on the inner side of the bone, where it is least protected by muscles, is more likely to occasion a fracture than one on the outer side or back of the limb.

Symptoms

An incomplete fracture of this bone, without displacement, affords no other evidence of its existence than local pain and swelling, with more or less lameness, and in this form of injury recovery may be looked forward to under proper treatment, and the same may be said of complete fracture when the broken parts continue to hold together.

It is when the broken fragments are separated that the case reaches its more serious aspect.

Here the animal fails to bear any weight upon the limb, and locomotion becomes impossible. The leg below the fracture displays abnormal mobility, and when raised from the ground swings forward and backward and bends from side to side. Crepitation is readily detected, and the part is swollen, hot, and painful to the touch.

Treatment

If the animal is young and docile, and the tissues in the region of the fracture have not been seriously damaged, and the parts are promptly brought together, reparation may possibly be effected. The chances, however, are too often in favour of the contrary result; and even in the majority of those cases in which a reunion is effected, some deformity, or other equally serious defect, remains behind.

It is only, therefore, in animals of considerable value that treatment is likely to be remunerative where successful. Since quietude is one of the first requirements of treatment, the patient must, as soon as possible, be placed in slings, and if a properly-constructed operating-table is not at hand, whereon chloroform may be given, a dose of morphia will have the effect of rendering him more manageable during readjustment of the broken bone. Before the bandages and splints are applied it is most essential that the leg leg brought into its natural position. The toe and the knee should be in line, and there should be no deviation either to the right or to the left in the course of the fractured bone.

Fig. 336. - Oblique Fracture of the Radius.

A series of bandages soaked in a mixture of the white of egg and starch should be applied up the leg from the coronet as far along the arm as it is possible, and then the iron splint designed by Bour-gelat (fig. 337) should be adjusted over them. Of course the hollow of the heel and all other depressions in the course of the limb will be filled in with tow, so that the pressure of the bandages may be equalized. Should no such splint be accessible, then wooden splints cut to the form and length of the limb must be employed.