Fractures and dislocations / by T. Pickering Pick.

  • Pick, T. Pickering (Thomas Pickering), 1841-1919.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fractures and dislocations / by T. Pickering Pick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/548 (page 2)
    under two heads : first, the local or exciting causes, and secondly, the predisposing or constitutional causes. L,ocaI causes—These are of two kinds, either the application of external violence (much the more frequent cause), or muscular action. Fractures from the application of external violence may be caused either by direct or indirect force. A man gets a severe blow on some bone, the bone gi\-es way at the point struck, and the fracture is said to occur from direct violence. When, on the other hand, a bone is compressed between two opposing forces, and gives way at its weakest part, it is said to occur from indirect violence. Here the bone first bends and then breaks, when it is bent beyond what its ela.sticity admits of, just in the same manner as an elastic column first bends and then breaks, if pressed upon by a superimposed verti- cal weight. Any part of a bone may be the seat of a fi-actuve from dii'ect violence, wliereas those from indirect force occur at some particular point. ITEusciilar contraction may be the cause of fracture. The most frequent example of this is seen in the patella from violent contraction of the quadriceps extensor cruris. Other bones ai-e, however, occasionally fractured from the same cause. Of these, the humerus is frequently broken in the act of throwing, or the olecranon may be separated from the shaft of the ulna by the violent contraction of the triceps. The poste- rior part of the os calcis may be torn ofi by the action of the muscles of the calf, and other bones are some- times, though rarely, broken by muscular contraction.* * For illustr.ative cases, see Medical Times and Gazette, vol. ii., p. 85, 1857; ibid., August 15, 1857; Cooiier on Fractures and Dislocations, p. 33!), 1842; Lancet, yo\. i., p. 271, 1807 ; American Journal Medical Science, p. 277, January, 1871 ; British Medical Journal, vol. ii., p. 513, 1872 ; Humphrey on Tlie Human Skele- ton, p. 9; Holmes on Principles and Practice of Smgery,'' p. 242, 4tli ed.