A treatise on fractures in the vicinity of the joints, and on certain forms of accidental and congenital dislocations.

  • Smith, Robert William.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on fractures in the vicinity of the joints, and on certain forms of accidental and congenital dislocations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    chanter four days before the man was admitted into the hospital. The foot was everted, and the shortening of the limb amounted to three-quarters of an inch. In this case, firm pressure was made by means of a truss applied round the pelvis, and the pad of which was adapted to the trochanter: after two days, however, the patient com- plained of so much pain, that it was necessary to remove the instrument: irritative fever, nevertheless, set in; the tongue became dry and coated with a brown fur; there was thirst and insomnia, and the patient gradu- ally became comatose, and died upon the seventeenth day after the receipt of the injury. Case III.—Thomas Maguire, a3t. 84.—Fracture of the neck of the femur close to its junction with the head of the bone, a small portion of the compact structure of which has been broken off in front; the cervical ligament has been torn in front, but internally and posteriorly is perfect, and holds the fragments in apposition; blood was effused between the fragments, from the ruptured ves- sels of the cancellated tissue. The fracture was caused by the patient's having tripped over some slight ob- stacle while walking across his room: he did not fall to the ground. The foot was everted, and the limb short- ened exactly half an inch. The patient died of irritative fever a fortnight after the occurrence of the accident. Throughout the whole progress of the case the patient complained of severe pain in and around the articulation : there was complete insomnia. This case affords a good illustration of the occurrence of fracture of the neck of the femur from a cause the most trivial.