Fractures, dislocations, diseases and deformities of the bones of the trunk and upper extremities / by Hugh Owen Thomas.
- Hugh Owen Thomas
- Date:
- 1887
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Fractures, dislocations, diseases and deformities of the bones of the trunk and upper extremities / by Hugh Owen Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![[Partyil.] diminished range of action, which he would look for when inspecting an inflamed knee or hip-joint. The surgeon never gets special credit—nor, indeed, is such due to him —for diagnosing the presence of acute inflammation of the shoulder- joint, as the patient often precedes him with an opinion on the nature of the case, which, generally, he has only to con- firm. The subacute kind of inflammation, which may arise in the shoulder, can be as certainly, though not as easily, diagnosed as the acute form. When the surgeon commences to glean facts for coming to a decision, the inflammation may be so mild that he cannot see any change in the configuration of the shoulder; touch gives only little infor- mation, and, as the humerus lies parallel with the trunk, both in health and disease, he can gain no evidence of the inflammation by a physical test. Interrogating the patient elicits only the information that he suffers from defect of power to use his limb in special directions. I have always found that the milder the complaint, the greater is the discredit attached to the surgeon if he overlooks its presence. In the foregoing paragraph, I have indicated the planks which the surgeon cannot lay his hand upon and with which to build a diagnosis, or to perform the by no means easy feat of convincing the patient that his complaint is a physiological and not a mechanical one, such as slipped sinew, joint partly out, sinews stretched. To enable me to submit to the reader my contribution towards improving our diagnosis and treatment of imflamma-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21290118_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
