Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/668

 65i rEDEBAli SeCOBTSB. �tfithin his command would permit. He had the leg bandaged •with Bplints, and put in a box the next day after the accident. His present explanation of why he used the box is that it was to keep the leg from "slatting" (rolling) around with the motion of the ship ; and that very circumstance, it seems to me, ought to have led to an examination that would have disclosed the fact that the Jemur was fraetured. Still, it does not appear that the master, with the means at his command, could have cared for the leg any better than he did, even if he had been certain that it-was fraetured. From the evidence it appears that the fracture was caused by the fall from the crane line to the boat and striking on the foot, and therefore it was probably oblique, and attended with more or less dis- placement — the upper part of the bone turning upwarda, and the lower part pushing downwards and backwards and by the other. 2 Holmes' Sys. Surg. 861. �In such a case, it appears from the books that if the sub- ject is an adult, whose muscles are not paralyzed, and there- fore offer the ordinary resistance to extension, more or lesi sbortening — from one-fourth to one and one-half inches — will always be the resuit, even where the case is treated by skilful surgeons, with the best appliances ; nor will a sbort- ening in such case of even three inches necessarily imply unskilful treatment. Hamilton's Prin. & Prac. Surg. 291; Id. Prac. & Dislo. 397; 2 Holmes' Surg. 865; 1 Elwell's Med. Sur. 97. �It only remains to consider the case after the arrivai of the Chandos in the Columbia river. And, first, it is well to stata that the obligation of the ship to take care of the libellant^ and do what could be done for him under the circumstances, continued until the vessel arrived at Portland — the end of his voyage — and even longer, if the libellant still required nurs- ing or medical treatment; and the fact that the libellant was entitled to admission into the marine hospital at Portland, did not excuse the ship from this obligation, because that was ■ his persoûal privilege or right, which he might avail him self of or not, as he saw proper. As was said by Mr. Justice Strong, in Reed v. Canfield, snpra, 200, 202, the hospital serv- ����