Case of a congenital disease, or, Malformation of the thigh-bone : illustrating the pathology of interstitial absorption of the cervix femoris / by Dr. Knox.

Robert Knox

Date:: [between 1800 and 1899?]

Credit: Case of a congenital disease, or, Malformation of the thigh-bone : illustrating the pathology of interstitial absorption of the cervix femoris / by Dr. Knox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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$OV THE THIGH-BONE. tracted to a striking difference which existed in the right lower extremity, when compared with the left. It was much weaker generally ; and, more particu- larly, the muscles of the thigh were weaker and soft- er than those of the left lower extremity. The whole limb seemed about three-fourths of an inch shorter than the other, and the toes were slightly turned out. When cut into, the hip-joint was per- fectly sound in all its parts ; the acetabulum was not changed in form, inflamed, or in any way affected : the head of the femur was also in a perfectly natu- ral state ; but the neck of the bone might be said to have disappeared. The trochanters appeared much longer than usual, and more particularly the larger trochanter; the head of the bone, in conse- quence of the disappearance of the neck, had become, to use the language of botanists, sessile; it had de- scended to a level with the trochanter, and indeed bore the strongest miniature resemblance to those specimens of diseased femur, which, from the days of Trioen, to the present time, have been imposed on the profession as specimens of bony union following fracture of the cervix femoj^is. I need not, I pre - sume, remind the Society of the natural elevation of the head of the femur, in a child, above the level of the trochanter, and the direct influence which the depression of the head of the bone to the level of the trochanters, must necessarily have over the to- tal length of the extremity. I regret that it is not in my power to exhibit the specimen to the Society; but, being familiar with$