FRACTURES.
If there be no wound of the soft parts, the bone simply being broken, the treatment is extremely easy. Apply a piece of wet leather, taking care to ease the limb when swelling supervenes. When the swelling is considerable, and fever present, the best course is to open a vein of the head or neck, allowing a quantity of blood to escape, proportioned to the size and condition of the animal, and the urgency of the symptoms. Purgatives in such cases should never be neglected. Epsom salts, in ounce doses, given either as a gruel or a drench, will be found to answer the purpose well. If the broken bones are kept steady, the cure will be complete in from three to four weeks, the process of reunion always proceeding faster in a young than in an old sheep. Should the soft parts be injured to any extent, or the ends of the bone protrude, recovery is very uncertain; and it will become a question whether it would not be better to convert the animal at once into mutton.