Fracture of the vertebral column is an accident which is now and again brought to the notice of most veterinarians in the course of their practice, but it is by no means an event of common occurrence in this country. Moller, a German authority, avers that he has "frequently seen riding-horses, in violently bucking, or falling over backward, or in arching the neck excessively, fracture a cervical vertebra". Such an experience of one division of the vertebral column, added to that of the others, would seem to warrant the statement that "it is not uncommon in horses"; but the writer is of opinion that Moller's experience is unique and exceptional, and cannot be taken to represent that of the general practitioner.

Fracture of the cervical vertebrae, or neck-bones, is of less frequent occurrence than fracture of the bones of the back and loins. It is seen most frequently in steeple-chase horses and hunters which, having missed their foothold in jumping, or after failing to clear a strong fence, pitch on the face, and bring all the force of impact and weight to bear against the incurved neck. In one case the writer found it to result from the struggles of a horse whose head became fixed between the wall of his stall and the post which supported the manger. It may, no doubt, sometimes arise from a backward fall on the poll.

Fracture of a vertebra may involve the body, or the arch of the bone, or both, or one or more of its processes may be chipped off. When the former are broken through, displacement invariably results, and the spinal cord receives a fatal pressure - fatal, because breathing is arrested in consequence of paralysis of the diaphragm, which receives its nervous supply from the cervical spinal cord, which now fails to transmit it.

Symptoms

Fracture of the vertebras in the middle and lower part of the neck is speedily fatal, and in any position the same result sooner or later follows.