Series of twelve bone and joint cases : illustrating recent improvement in the mechanical surgery of the lower limb / by Rushton Parker.

  • Parker, Rushton, 1847-1932.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Series of twelve bone and joint cases : illustrating recent improvement in the mechanical surgery of the lower limb / by Rushton Parker. 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.

    16/30 (page 12)
    the antevioi’ muscles of the leg’, shown by pei’sistent drop of the foot in the pointed-down extended position. This even- tually;, though very slowly, disappeared. By the beginning of March he was allowed to get up, still wearing the splint, bearing his weight on the uninjured leg, elongated by a simple wooden clog about two inches thick on his boot, and using a pair of crutches. The patient was kept as long as practicable in hospital and in the convalescent institution, eventually returning to work at the end of May, having a shortening of an inch and a half or less. On May 29 he fell off a scaffold, and was admitted into hospital with a fracture of the same thigh. This time the middle of the shaft was affected, and all found sound at the sites of the previous accident. He was at once put up in Thomas’s knee-splint, with hollow sheet-iron splints padded with boiler-felt and covered with boracic lint (next the skin) well surrounding the thigh. An uninterrupted recovery took place, and by the end of June good union had resulted, without any shortening in the last fracture. He was then allowed up, wearing a knee-splint a little longer than the limb. This was discarded in August, in the last week of which he was again sent to the convalescent institution, still using crutches, but no splint. Remarks.—It is impossible to exaggerate the comfort and convenience, combined with an extreme degree of liberty of motion, procured to patients treated in the manner above described. They can be rolled over in bed, can place them- selves upon the bed-pan, and in the case of the knee-splint can even sit up in bed, while a fracture of the femoral shaft is still proceeding, without impairing the mechanical efficiency of the treatment. (For further particulars and illustrations see the second volume of “ Transactions of the International Medical Con- gress,” 1881, or “ Surgical Cases and Essays,” by the same writer.)