A practical treatise on fractures and dislocations / by Frank Hastings Hamilton.
- Frank Hastings Hamilton
- Date:
- 1891
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A practical treatise on fractures and dislocations / by Frank Hastings Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![Hollidaysburg, Pa., has communicated a case of fracture with dislocation. The woman, when about four months with child, fell on her left side, striking upon a board, and hurting herself severely. At the full period she was delivered of a well-grown male child. Its left humerus was found to be dislocated into the axilla, and both the radius and ulna of the same limb had been broken through their lower thirds, but were now united by bony callus at an angle of about 45°, and slightly overlapped.1 Devergie has given an account of a woman who, when seven months with child, struck her abdomen against the corner of a table. Intense pain followed, lasting some time. She went her full period, and the child was then found to have a fracture of the left clavicle, the fragments being overlapped somewhat, and united in this position by a firm and large callus.2 A woman also six months gone met with a similar accident, and at the full time she gave birth to a feeble child, having in one leg a separation of the shaft of the tibia from its lower epiphysis. The end of the shaft was necrosed, and projected through a wound in the integument. This child died on the thirteenth day.3 Schubert reports the case of a female delivered before her term, of twins, one of whom was born with a fracture of the left thigh, which had occurred in utero ; the fractured bone had pierced the flesh, through which it projected more than an inch, and it was carious. The mother stated that about six weeks before the accouchement, during a movement of the foetus, she had heard a noise like that produced by breaking a stick, and from that moment she had felt pricking pains in her belly.4 Similar cases have been recorded by Ploucquet, Kopp, Carus, Sachse, Moffat, and Brodhurst.5 In many other examples upon record6 the explanation is plainly enough to be sought for in the abnormal or rhachitic condition of the bones. Monteggia saw, in a newly born infant, twelve united fractures. Chaussier, who has published a memoir upon this subject, mentions two very extraordinary cases, in one of which the child presented forty-three fractures, and in the other one hundred and twelve.7 I saw an infant only four days old, who was born at the full time, of a healthy mother, in whom nearly all of the long bones were separated and movable at their epiphyses, the motion being generally accompanied with a dis- tinct crepitus. The bones were also much enlarged in their circumference ; the bones of the forearm and the femur were greatly curved; the fontanelles un- usually open, and the clavicles were entirely wanting. The child was of full size, but looked feeble. It died in a condition of marasmus six months after birth, at which time some degree of union had taken place at several of the points of separation, the limbs having been supported constantly with pasteboard splints and rollers. Fractures occurring from violence inflicted upon the child by the accoucheur, or from contractions of the neck of the womb while the child is in transitu, are more common occurrences, and do not require a separate consideration. 1 Rodrigue, Amer. Jouru. Med. Sci., Jan. 1854, p. 272. 2 Devergie, Rev. Med., 1825. 3 Malgaigne, from Archiv. Gen. de Med., t. xvi. p. 288. i Amer. Journ. Med. Sci., May, 1828, p. 223; from Zeitsch. fur Staatsarz. von Henke, 7e Erg. Heft., p. 311. Holmes's Surgery, vol. iv. p. 826. 5 Holmes's Surgery, vol. iv. 827, from Med.-Chir. Trans., vol. xliii., 1860. 6 Lond. Med. Times and Gaz., April 7, 1860. New Orleans Med. Journ., Nov. 1860. 7 Chaussier, Bullet, de la Faeulte de Med. de Paris, ] 813, p. 301.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21056699_0034.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
