Fractures, dislocations, deformities and diseases of the lower extremities / by Hugh Owen Thomas.

  • Thomas, Hugh Owen, 1834-1891.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fractures, dislocations, deformities and diseases of the lower extremities / by Hugh Owen Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    On the other hand, if contractions accompany or follow disease, we may be sure our counter extensions have been inefficient, and therefore worthless, and that the i^nprovement, if any, is due to the quiet fixation of the joint, which the splint has been a convenient means of accomplishing, and I suspect this is very often the case in the use of both tplint and pulley. So that quiet fixation can lead to improvement according to Dr. Taylor. The next quotation asserts that traction has its evils :— '•I have seen several legs irretrievably spoiled by applying the straps on the leg only, neglecting to include the thigh. This has been generally done when the treatment had been by the weight and pulley; force enough to relax the powerful muscles about the hip-joint must be liable to pull asunder the weaker ones at the knee and ankle, if traction be made only from the foot and leg. If this damage can occur from extension applied to a sound joint, what may be the amount of damage done to an unsound articulation, the structural surroundings of which are softened by inflammalion ? Again, v/e are informed that :— With the best appliances disease of the hip-joint is not easy to cure. The following quotation shows poverty in diagnosis:— The symptoms generally relied upon as diagnostic of disease of the hip- joint are worthless for all practical purposes of either anticipating the graver stages of the disease, or of affording indication for treatment. Yet the reader is not introduced to any other method of diagnosis, though he admits the woithlessness of the usual symptoms relied on for detecting this lesion. Here is a para- graph contrasting the effect of art with non-interference in a case presented to him for treatment. He says :—