STEEPLECHASE ACCIDENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2286, 5 March 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

STEEPLECHASE ACCIDENTS.

In a contemporary of the 3rd December, it was reported that at the recent Croydon meeting a jockey had to wait a considerable time before a substitute for a bandage could be obtained wherewith to bind up his injured body. Considering the popularity of steeplechasing and hurdle-racing, the number of meetings, and the peculiar dangers risked by riders, we agree with the suggestion made that the Grand National Hunt Committee should take steps to see that ordinary surgical appliances are always ready to hand. Excluding fatal and exceptionally severe injuries, such as fracture of the skull, the most likely mishaps are cuts and bruises and simple fractures, especially of the clavicle. The degree of suffering in such cases is minimised by prompt and careful attention, even that which an ordinary ''unskilled" person can render. But we would go a step further and urge that a pastime which counts thousands for its votaries, and implies the outlay of large sums, is surely able to sustain the expense of paying for the attendance of a qualified medical man at all meetings held under the Hunt rules. We doubt not that if the services of a doctor could be in requisition immediately, many cases of accident which might otherwise prove serious would be kept within the limits of a favourable prognosis. Compare, for example, the danger in cases of simple and compound fractures, in which too often one of the first rules of surgery is contravened for want of adequate and reasonable surgical aid ; we refer to the converting of a simple into a compound fracture.— Lancet.