Cleft palate and adenoids : treatment of simple fractures by operation : diseases of joints : operative treatment of cancer : acquired deformities : antrectomyernia, etc. / W. Arbuthnot Lane.

  • Lane, William Arbuthnot, 1856-1943.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cleft palate and adenoids : treatment of simple fractures by operation : diseases of joints : operative treatment of cancer : acquired deformities : antrectomyernia, etc. / W. Arbuthnot Lane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Compensation for shortening throws an additional strain on a joint which is already insecure^ and tends to increase its mobility in a vertical plane, together with the deformity and insecurity which result from it. This is well seen in that variety of congenital dislocation of the head of the femur upwards and backwards on the dorsum ilii. I propose now to consider this congenital deformity first, and in doing so we should commence by asking ourselves these questions : 1. What is the anatomy of the condition ? 2. What are its mechanics, or, in other words, its functions or physiology ? 3. Can the head of the bone be restored to its normal position, and if not, on what principles should its treatment be based ? I do not propose to drag you through the literature of the subject, as I have already plodded through it and experienced how obscure, contradictory, and ap- parently deliberately misleading much of it is, but I will confine myself to submitting to you my own experience and arguments for your consideration and criticism. I have operated on several of the worst cases that I have seen, sometimes on one side, sometimes on both sides. 1. Anatomy.—In nearly every one of them I found precisely the same structural conditions. The femur was, roughly speaking, normal in form, except that its neck was shorter than usual, and its head was very decidedly flatter. It was such a condition as one would expect to result from the articulation of the head of the growing bone with a flat surface instead of with a uniform concavity, since the form of a bone varies tvith its function or physiology.