Page:A descriptive catalogue of the Warren Anatomical Museum.djvu/755

 in case of transverse fracture of both bones, just above the wrist-joint.

The patient was a man, fifty-two years of age, who entered the hospital Oct. 21st (141, 235). There were other serious injuries, and he remained until the 3d of Feb. The cast was taken, just before he left the hospital, by Mr. Henry T. Boutwell, one of the house-pupils ; the deformity, at that time, being of course, much less than at first. 1870. Dr. H. J. Bigelvtv.

3650. Fracture of the neck of the femur, with inversion.

The following history of this case, with remarks upon it, is from Dr. Bigelow's work of Dislocation and Fracture of the Hip (1869) :

" This accident is of rare occurrence. Smith and Ham- ilton each cite but one case. Indeed, the structure of the bone, as has been shown, is such as to insure an almost uniform eversion of the shaft. A specimen from a dissect- ing room has enabled me to examine this rare lesion, and to identify the conditions under which it probably occurred. In this subject, an old woman, the limb was flexed a little, shortened to the extent of 3 in., and inverted so that the patella faced inward ; the limb was in slight abduction, and could be neither everted nor brought to the median line. The trochanter was felt to be much thickened. Upon examination of this exceptional specimen, the neck of the bone was found to be firmly united at right angles with the shaft, which was split open, and spread so widely as to receive the whole impacted neck, leaving a fissure an inch or more long, and a quarter of an inch wide between the anterior wall and the neck, and extending nearly to the outer wall of the shaft, while another similar fissure exists behind the neck. The principal posterior fragment com- prised the two trochanters, with the intertrochanteric ridge, and also a large fragment of the external portion of the shaft, while above, the region of the great trochanter seemed to have been comminuted, and driven downward and inward. Anteriorly, the fracture had occurred, as usual in impacted fracture, along the oblique spiral line, although differing from that injury ; the neck being deeply driven in behind this wall, from which it had slipped,

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