Shortening of limbs after fracture / by Lewis A. Sayre.

  • Sayre, Lewis A. (Lewis Albert), 1820-1900.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Shortening of limbs after fracture / by Lewis A. Sayre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    14/18 (page 12)
    sentences I have here quoted. On the contrary, in the very table of cases which I presented to the As- sociation at Detroit to prove the correctness of my plan of treatment, only four were claimed to be per- fect out of the whole number of cases presented. On page 49 Dr. Hamilton describes a case brought in his clinic and measured by himself, Dr. Krackowizer and others, and found to be shortened one inch, “ but Dr. Sayre thought it was a little lengthened,” and then says: “It will not be difficult to understand, from the results of measurement in this case, that Dr. Sayre would meet with examples of perfect res- toration of the bone oftener than Dr. Krackowizer or myself.” I made no measurement in this case at all, but, as Dr. Hamilton and the other gentlemen who measured the case, differed as to the amount of shortening, and as a measure must always be the same, I merely put the tape on the limb, from the anterior superior spinous process to the malleolus, in the same manner as they did, in order to show them that the mode of measurement was unreliable ; and for Dr. Hamilton to represent this as an actual measure- ment on my part, to ascertain the exact length of the limb, is a misrepresentation of the facts as they oc- curred. On page 57 he says: “A distinguished English surgeon has recently said that he has given up measuring broken thighs—because of the uncertainty of measurements, I infer.” If the measurement is made in the usual way, and as was done by Dr. Ham- ilton and others in the case referred to, I think the distinguished English surgeon is correct, and I cer- tainly agree with him. The only reliable instrument for exact measurement of the thighs is that of Dr. Thomas Holgate, of this city, and as I did not have it with me at the time, I made no actual measurement of the case at all, but merely wTent through the form of imitating Dr. Hamilton’s measurement for the purpose of demonstrating to him and the others present that it was unreliable. In referring to the tabulated cases of Dr. Yan Wagenen, attached to my report, and in which I had stated before the Medical Association that Dr. Ham-