Volume 1

The science and art of surgery : a treatise on surgical injuries, diseases, and operations / by John Eric Erichsen.

Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science and art of surgery : a treatise on surgical injuries, diseases, and operations / by John Eric Erichsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    part of the thigh from the trochanters to the lower end, where the skin over the patella is included in the anterior flap. In some instances in which the tissues at the posterior part of the thigh are much diseased or injured, whilst those on the anterior aspect of the limb are sound, a very good stump may be fashioned by making a long square anterior flap, and then cutting at one stroke of the knife through the soft parts at the ])osterior aspect of the hmb, in a somewhat oblique direction from below upwards. The anterior flap, when laid down, will form the cushion at the end of the stump. Amputation in the lower 'third of the thigh is sometimes undertaken for Fig. VS.—Amputation of tlio Thigli: Fbips cut from without inwards. spontaneous gangrene of the foot. In such cases the best method is to divide the soft parts on the front of the thigh circularly down to the bone at the level of the upper border of the patella. A very short posterior skin flap is raised, and the soft parts are reflected for at least the length of the diameter of the limb before sawing the bone. Scarcely any interference with the vascular supply of the part is thus caused. Amputation through the Trochanters may sometimes be advantageously practised, either in severe compound fractures of the lower part of the thigh, or in cases of non-malignant tumours of the lower and middle thirds of the femur ; and thus the more severe and dangerous operation of disarticulation at the hip may be avoided. Indeed, should it be found, after section of the bone, that it is so much injured or diseased as to require removal at the joint,