A letter to the Hon. Isaac Parker, chief justice of the Supreme court of the state of Massachusetts : containing remarks on the dislocation of the hip joint, occasioned by the publication of a trial which took place at Machias, in the state of Maine, June, 1824 / by John C. Warren ; with an appendix of documents from the trial necessary to illustrate the history of the case.

  • Warren, John Collins, 1778-1856.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Hon. Isaac Parker, chief justice of the Supreme court of the state of Massachusetts : containing remarks on the dislocation of the hip joint, occasioned by the publication of a trial which took place at Machias, in the state of Maine, June, 1824 / by John C. Warren ; with an appendix of documents from the trial necessary to illustrate the history of the case. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    my satisfaction ; but the situation of the limb did not accord with the representaiion given of its necessary direction in such a case. What decision could 1 come to in this state of the contradictory phenomena ? On the one side, there appeared (o be the opinion of a high au- thority ; on the other, that of my own senses. When I further considered the matter, it became obvious that the symptoms mentioned by Sir Astley Cooper referred to a different accident; to a lodgment of the head of the bone higher up; and that if a lodgment of the bone should take place on the parts below the level of the socket, the movements of the limb would not be confined to the same degree, as in the other instance, nor would it have the same direction. Having duly considered this, and not being able to find the head of the bone in front of the articulating cavity ; but on the con- trary, being satisfied of its existence behind it, I con- cluded that the dislocation was backwards, as well as downwards. The more full and continued display of the disordered part-, and of its movements during the subsequent attempts to reduce the bone, by giving addi- tional means of examination, confirmed me in this opin- ion. Such, or nearly such, was the course of my obser- vations and reasonings, at the time when the injury was presented for my opinion. Having formed a judgment of the nature of the de- rangement I told the patient, that I was sorry to be obliged to say, that he had a dislocation of the hip joint of the most difficult kind. This information did not seem, as I had expected it would, to surprise him ; for having heard my opinion, he proceeded to state, that he had in the beginning, supposed the limb to be put out; that he had applied to surgical practitioners in his vicin- ity, and had been operated on for a dislocated hip ; that the bone was supposed to have been restored to its place ; and that he himself thought so, till he got up and began to try his limb, when he found it in a crip- pled state, and was after a time led to believe, that it had never been reduced to its proper situation* He did