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.

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    quelques annees aussi qu'un chirurgien de Philadelphie, Physick, a concu l'ingenieuse idee du traitement de la pseudarthrose par ^'interposition et le sejour momentane d'un seton entre les bouts de l'os non consolide, pour y exciter l'inflammation adhesive, cette operation n'a ete pratiquee, que je saclie du rnoins, par aucun chirurgien franeois. This increased frequency of the non-union in England Eoux attributed to the fact that the roller band- age used here is much more difficult to keep firmly applied than the many-tailed bandages which are commonly used in France. Whatever may be the real cause of this re- markable rarity of non-union in France, there is no doubt that it was maintained for many years. In a lecture given in 1860 at the Hopital des Enfants1 in Paris, M. Guersant says, n I have only seen a single case of ununited fracture occurring in a child in the whole of my long ex- perience, and for this child everything was done, but ineffectually, and her leg had to be amputated (No. 69). M. Marjolin, in his edition of ' Coulon's Treatise on Frac- tures in Children/ states that up to the time he was writing he had never met with a case. It appears to me that want of rest is the main cause of the non-union of fractures, though there may be many subordinate factors. Hamilton, in his paper published in the 'Buffalo Medical Journal,2 so long ago as 1854, pointed out that hinge-movements between the ends of a fractured bone are the most fertile source of non-union. It is exactly this kind of movement which occurs in the broken bones of children when they are nursed or carried about, especially when, as frequently happens, the fracture has been overlooked, and no restraining apparatus has been employed for a week or ten days after the injuiy. This explanation, however, will not account for the in- creasing frequency of false joints in children; but I am inclined to correlate this phenomenon with the decadence of bandaging in England. With a roller bandage well l * Gaz. des H6pitaux,' I860, p. 346. a See ' A Practical Treatise of Fractures and Dislocations/ ed. 7, p. 287.