Receive monthly Table of Contents alerts from The Bone & Joint Journal
Comprehensive article alerts can be set up and managed through your account settings
View my account settings1. It is suggested that the obstruction causing delayed reduction of the congenitally dislocated hip is the infolded limbus.
2. An operation is described by which the infolding limbus may be easily and safely removed.
3. The early results of the operation are reported.
4. The evidence for the original assumption is discussed.
The frame described has a place in the treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip especially if the diagnosis is not made until after the age of one year. Analysis of comparable series of hips reduced on the frame and by manipulation shows that dysplasia of the femoral head is decidedly commoner after the manipulative method.
1 . A small series of fractures of the calcaneum with distortion of the subtalar joint has been reviewed.
2. All were treated by subtalar fusion, in most as part of the primary treatment.
3. In all patients the subtalar joint fused by bone without post-operative plaster immobilisation.
4. Plaster immobilisation is not only unnecessary, it is undesirable.
5. Heavy work, including work on ladders and scaffolding, can be undertaken after subtalar fusion.
Four cases are shown to illustrate remodelling of the lower end of the humerus after supracondylar fractures with displacement in childhood. Remodelling is rapid and will restore almost normal anatomy and good function even with severely displaced fractures. The results are much better than in many cases treated by open reduction.
1. A patient wholly insensitive to painful stimuli as judged by psychical, physical, reflex and autonomic responses, showed multiple arthropathies.
2. Biopsy specimens of skin and periosteum from the region of the hip joint showed free nerve terminals similar in morphology to endings considered to subserve pain in normal subjects. The abnormality related to defective pain sensation therefore appears not to be due to a defect in the peripheral nerve endings for pain, but to be located more centrally in the nervous system.
3. In this patient, and in some patients with syringomyelia, arthropathy is associated with selective impairment of pain sensibility of the involved joints. It appears that tissue damage from the wear and tear of normal activity of a joint, if this damage is unheralded because of impairment of pain sense, can lead to arthropathy.
4. It is noted that further experimental evidence is still required to elucidate the role of various modalities of innervation in the maintenance of normal structure and function of joints.
In osteogenesis imperfecta the formation of callus is usually plentiful and sometimes rather excessive but the excess is absorbed in the normal way as consolidation occurs. In hyperplastic callus formation the amount of callus formed is large, or even enormous; and, once its limits are defined and ossification has occurred, some part of the original swelling remains as a thickening of the bone. "Callus" may form with or without injury and with or without fracture. The interest of the present case lies partly in the fact that there is no history of multiple fractures to indicate classical osteogenesis imperfecta, and partly in the familial incidence which has also been noted in other records. It is important to recognise the true nature of the condition in order to avoid the tragedy of unnecessary amputation. In one of Brailsford's cases the lesion is said to have become malignant but there is no other evidence in the literature that the condition has any relationship to malignancy. The clinical appearance can easily give rise to the suspicion of malignancy, and on histological examination the highly cellular and rapidly growing callus can be confused with a malignant condition. In fact, for the short time in which the bone formation runs riot the behaviour of a malignant neoplasm is closely simulated.
It is thought that the present account may be of interest because of the invariable relief of pain after x-ray treatment of each new lesion, the length of time over which the case has been followed and the resemblance between the radiographic appearances in the patient now and those of her aunt taken twenty years ago.
A case of hyperplastic callus formation is reported in a girl of eleven; several bones were affected. There were no associated fractures. She is believed to be suffering from a mild non-familial type of osteogenesis imperfecta without blue sclerotics and presents multiple bony excrescences unassociated with injury. The relevant literature is reviewed. The effect of a trial of treatment with A.C.T.H. and with deep x-ray is reported.
1. Arterial spasm may be expected in any injury resulting in stretch of the arterial system.
2. Excessive traction in the treatment of fractures may well initiate diffuse arterial spasm.
3. In fractures that have permitted shortening of the vascular system for a considerable period, spasm may be initiated when a return to normal length is made.
1. The form and distribution of the blood vessels within the adult human femoral head are described.
2. It has been found possible to delimit the proximal femoral epiphysis in mature years by reference to arterial form alone.
3. Two morphologically different sets of vessels are described interposed between the arterioles and venules of the bone marrow. One, a true capillary bed, lies mainly within the fat marrow; the other, constituted by sinusoids, lies within the red marrow. The departure of these findings from current views is noted.
4. A capillary system is described in relationship to the calcified zone of the articular cartilage.
5. No evidence has been found in support of the common belief that the circulation within the femoral head decreases quantitatively with advancing age.
1. Previous investigations into the blood supply of the femoral shaft are reviewed.
2. Details of the blood supply of the shaft of the femur in seventeen children under one year of age, and in ten adults, are given.
3. These findings are discussed with special reference to the fate of the femoral shaft after fracture or operation.
1. The literature dealing with the reaction of tissues to metals has been briefly reviewed and discussed.
2. It is suggested that the "anodic back EMF" of metals, under the conditions of the experiment, is a measurable electrical quantity which can be correlated with their behaviour in tissues.
3. Details of the method for obtaining this "anodic back EMF" are given.
4. A correlation between the "anodic back EMF" and the loss of weight due to corrosion
5. The inertness of eighty-seven metals has been classified by this method.
6. It must be emphasised that these results are based on