An analysis of seventy-two cases of ununited fracture occurring in the long bones of children / by D'Arcy Power.

  • Power, D'Arcy, 1855-1941.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An analysis of seventy-two cases of ununited fracture occurring in the long bones of children / by D'Arcy Power. 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.

    4/18 (page 120)
    on the ' Principles and Practice of Surgery,' Philadelphia, 1878, has collected, by the energy of Dr. Frank Muhlen- berg, no less than 685 cases of ununited fractures of the shafts of long bones. In this large number, however, are included many of Norris's and Gurlt's cases. We have thus in an accessible form 1319 cases of ununited fracture duly tabulated, and including persons of all ages. No one hitherto has been at the trouble to collect and to publish cases of ununited fracture in children, although it is known that they often possess features of especial interest. As my attention has recently been called to the fact of their occurrence, and circumstances have led me to collate the literature of the subject, I have thought that it might prove useful if I tabulated the cases which I have met with. I have accordingly done so, and it is with a consideration of this table that I propose to occupy a short period of your time this evening. Sir James Paget, in the very interesting series of essays entitled ' Studies of Old Case-books/ which has been recently issued, says, n I have seen only three cases of ununited fractures in young children, aud the measures which are usually sufficient for the cure of this defect in adults were in all these cases completely useless. Similar cases have occurred to others ; and, so far as I know, they have not been explained (p. 130). The table of cases which I present to you shows that Sir James Paget's opinion holds ti'ue even when his conclusion is applied to a very large series of cases. How little attention has been bestowed upon the subject of ununited fractures in children is manifest from the fact that it has escaped the notice of so careful and experienced an observer as our President, Mr. Timothy Holmes. There is no doubt whatever about the rarity of cases of ununited fracture in young children, though I am rather inclined to think that they are becoming somewhat more numerous than was formerly the case. Dr. Norris, in his table of 150 cases, only records a single instance of non-union in a child which had come under his personal