The man had carried this knife for thirty years.

The wound healed in a few days and there was no more inconvenience.
Fracture of the lower part of the spine is not always fatal, and notwithstanding the lay-idea that a broken back means certain death, patients with well-authenticated cases of vertebral fracture have recovered.

Warren records the case of a woman of sixty who, while carrying a clothes-basket, made a misstep and fell 14 feet, the basket of wet clothes striking the right shoulder, chest, and neck.

There was fracture of the 4th dorsal vertebra at the transverse processes.

By seizing the spinous process it could be bent backward and forward, with the peculiar crepitus of fractured bone.