Improvements in flexed splints / [William Dickey Kearns].

  • Kearns, William Dickey.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Improvements in flexed splints / [William Dickey Kearns]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I Date of Application, 11th July, 1896—Accepted, 15th Aug., 1896 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION. [Communicated from abroad by William Dickey Kearns, of Pittsburg, County of Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania, one of the United States of America, Doctor of Medicine.] Improvement in Flexed Splints. I John Thomson King, of 4 Clayton Square Liverpool in the County of Lancaster, Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement :— 5 My invention consists in an improvement in splints for treating fracture of the fore arm or wrist, and it consists in giving to the splints a peculiar conformation which is especially adapted to secure the greater comfort of the patient, and to lessen the liability to displacement of the bones during the process of setting. In the accompanying drawings forming part of this specification, 10 Figure 1 is a side view in perspective of a pair of my improved splints as applied to the fore arm and right hand of a patient. Figure 2 is a top view of the palmar splint. Figure 3 is a side perspective view of the palmar splint of Figure 2. The splints represented in these figures and to which my improvement is applied 15 form a pair, the upper one A in Figure 1 being the dorsal splint applied to the back of the hand and forearm, and the other splint B being the palmar splint, applied to the inside of the fingers, the palm of the hand and the front side of the forearm. In my invention it is the palmar splint B which by its peculiar conformation is 20 designed to govern the position of the hand, while the dorsal splint A serves merely to preserve the position of the bones of the arm, wrist, metacarpus, and fingers assumed by those parts when the palmar splint is applied to the hand. In explaining my invention I shall confine the description chiefly to the palmar splint B for the reason that it is chiefly concerned in governing the position of the 25 hand of the patient. The palmar splint B instead of being straight longitudinally, is bent or inclined, the angle of inclination being at the wrist, as shown by the dotted line x—x of Figure 2, so that when the splint is applied to the hand and arm, with the brachial portion a under the forearm with the wrist of the patient’s hand resting at 30 the point of the splint marked c in Figure 3, aud the palm of his hand and fingers resting on the metacarpal portion h of the splint, the hand assumes a position of inclination outwards when the palm of the hand is down, which it will be observed is the natural position of the human hand relatively to the forearm when the hand is at ease. 35 This palmar splint has also an abrupt upward flexure, or angle of retroflexion between the brachial portion a and the metacarpal portion h. This angle of retro¬ flexion (as shown by the dotted lines e.f, g, in Figure 3) is from one hundred to one hundred and five degrees. This secures a greater degree of upward flexure of the hand at the wrist relatively to the forearm which I find to be very advantageous 40 in practice. At that portion of the palmar splint on which the wrist of the patient rests, 1 make an upward swelling or projection h on the upper or inside of the splint which extends a short distance up the brachial portion a and also transversely across the \_Frice Sd. j