A probationary surgical essay, on dislocations of the thigh bone : submitted,... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh,... / by John Gordon ... October, 1808.

  • John Gordon
Date:
[1808]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A probationary surgical essay, on dislocations of the thigh bone : submitted,... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh,... / by John Gordon ... October, 1808. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A mended.* But as the Psoas magnus, Iliacus, and Rectus cruris muscles firmly embrace and bind down the neck of the femur on the fore part, we apprehend that the more the limb is pulled in the direction of the body, the more these muscles will be stretched, and the more difficultly will the head of the bone be moved from its situation. This we have always found to be the case in experiment on the dead body. If, on the contrary, the Rectus muscle be re¬ laxed, by extending the leg on the thigh, and the Psoas and Iliacus, by bending the thigh on the pelvis, we believe that the principal obstacles to reduction will be avoided, and that little if any extension will be necessary in replacing the head of the femur. We can have little doubt that it was inattention to this circumstance, which alone created the serious difficulty experienced by Desault in the treatment of his case, and that this justly celebrated practition- er ascribed to the state of the capsular ligament, that resistance which in fact arose from the manner in which the extention was made. To the same cause we ought probably to attribute even the lesser diffi¬ culties met with in reduction by Deschamps-Larivi- rere, and by Leveille, in his fourth case. This luxation is less frequent in occurrence than the first species, though more so than the last which # Pouteau appears to have erred as much in recommending extension to be made in a line with the body in this species, as in regarding it to be most eligible, to have it made at a right angle with the body in the two former species of Luxation. Oeuv. Posth. ii. 242. *
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