The surgical treatment of the diseases of infancy and childhood / by T. Holmes.
- Timothy Holmes
- Date:
- 1868
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The surgical treatment of the diseases of infancy and childhood / by T. Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
530/700
![After- growth of the limb. the heel, and is cut away at the popliteal space. The hooks of the iron rod serve to suspend the limb to a swing-cradle.* The advan- tages claimed for this method of putting up cases of excision of the knee are, the lightness of the apparatus, and the facilities which it affords for moving the patient without in any way disturbing the wound. It certainly appears worthy of trial. It may seem strange that there should still be a doubt as to the reality of the suspension of growth after excision of the knee; but I cannot help inferring from Mr. Butcher's lan- guage that such a doubt does exist, at any rate in his mind. I have, however, seen many cases in which such a suspension of growth was most marked, reaching, in a case operated on by the late Mr. Jones of Jersey, almost to the extent of that in Mr. Pemberton's well-known patient.f In a boy under my own care, in whom the shaft of the femur had been trenched upon in the operation, the shortening increased pro- gressively as the boy grew, till at the age of eighteen (about five years after operation) it reached A\ inches. In Mr. Pember- [Fig. 70. The front view of the end of the femur, re- moved some distance above the upper edge of its toil's and ill Mr. Jones's articular surface.] •, i i cases it does not appear that the point was noted as to the whole of the epiphysis having been re- moved. In my own it was noticed at the time of operation that the shaft had been trenched upon. J [Fig. 77. The back view of the same femur, showing I have no doubt whatever that the whole of the condyles has been removed.] Q£ ^e reality of the Con- nexion between such injury to the shaft of the bone and the loss of growth which follows it. I fully allow that it is some- times impossible to remove the whole disease without sawing * Dr. Watson On Excision of the Knee-Joint, 1867. f Figured in Sir W. Fergusson's Lectures, p. 142, and in many other works. t I may state, in my own defence, that I believe the disease could not have been removed without so trenching on the diaphysis of the femur.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20416325_0530.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
