Diseases of the hip, knee, and ankle joints : with their deformities, treated by a new and efficient method / by Hugh Owen Thomas.

  • Thomas, Hugh Owen, 1834-1891.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the hip, knee, and ankle joints : with their deformities, treated by a new and efficient method / by Hugh Owen Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    the sound limb in this fixed position; the patient is then urged to extend, as far as he is able, the diseased limb, and this he will be able to do in a degree varying with the previous duration of the affection. While the patient is retained in this position the operator will be able readily to note a rigid cord corresponding to the origin of the adductors, which are invariably the first to shorten. In fact, this method demonstrates two invariable symptoms of hip joint inflammation, flexion of the hip joint, and curve of the spine, in a greater or less degree, so early as the first or second week, limiting the normal range of extension,* which not only is * Dr. Taylor, of New York, in a paper read before the New York Medi- cal Library and Journal Association, discusses constant, excessive, and unre. laxing tonic contraction, varied or not with spasms, but always present when there is any disease in the joint. The latter may exist so slightly as not to prevent the extremest flexion and extension. The above quotation I hold to be a contradiction. How is it possible to have contraction of a muscle, and its utmost extensibility, coexisting ? Indeed, our transatlantic brethren, having adopted during the Davis-Sayre period the wrong premises of these gentlemen, have set aside the little good that was in the practice of our predecessors. We are told that the continuous extension is carried so far that weights, nearly as heavy as the sufferer, are attached to the diseased limb, with, in my opinion, the effect of masking one pain by another; and I can not perceive that such would be any benefit to the patient.