Anomalies And Curiosities Of Medicine Part 55

(1) An oblique fracture of the middle third of the right femur.

(2) A transverse fracture of the middle third of the left femur.

(3) A slightly comminuted transverse fracture of the middle third of the left tibia and fibula.

(4) A transverse fracture of the lower third of the right humerus.

(5) A fracture of the lower third of the right radius.

(6) A partial radiocarpal dislocation.

(7) Considerable injuries of the soft parts at the seats of fracture, and contusions and abrasions all over the body.

During convalescence the little patient suffered an attack of measles, but after careful treatment it was found by the seventy-eighth day that she had recovered without bony deformity, and that there was bony union in all the fractures. There was slight tilting upward in the left femur, in which the fracture had been transverse, but there was no perceptible shortening.

Hulke describes a silver-polisher of thirty-six who, while standing near a machine, had his sleeve caught by a rapidly-turning wheel, which drew him in and whirled him round and round, his legs striking against the ceiling and floor of the room. It was thought the wheel had made 50 revolutions before the machinery was stopped. After his removal it was found that his left humerus was fractured at its lower third, and apparently comminuted. There was no pulse in the wrist in either the radial or ulnar arteries, but there was pulsation in the brachial as low as the ecchymosed swelling. Those parts of the hand and fingers supplied by the median and radial nerves were insensible. The right humerus was broken at the middle, the end of the upper fragment piercing the triceps, and almost protruding through the skin. One or more of the middle ribs on the right side were broken near the angle, and there was a large transverse rent in the quadriceps extensor.

Despite this terrible accident the man made a perfect recovery, with the single exception of limitation of flexion in the left elbow-joint.

Dewey details a description of a girl of six who was carried around the upright shaft of a flour mill in which her clothes became entangled.

Some part of the body struck the bags or stones with each revolution.

She sustained a fracture of the left humerus near the insertion of the deltoid, a fracture of the middle third of the left femur, a compound fracture of the left femur in the upper third, with protrusion of the upper fragment and considerable venous hemorrhage, and fracture of the right tibia and fibula at the upper third. When taken from the shafting the child was in a moribund state, with scarcely perceptible pulse, and all the accompanying symptoms of shock. Her injuries were dressed, the fractures reduced, and starch bandages applied; in about six weeks there was perfect union, the right leg being slightly shortened. Six months later she was playing about, with only a slight halt in her gait.

Miscellaneous Multiple Fractures.--Westmoreland speaks of a man who was pressed between two cars, and sustained a fracture of both collar-bones and of the sternum; in addition, six or eight ribs were fractured, driven into and lacerating the lung. The heart was displaced. In spite of these terrible injuries, the man was rational when picked up, and lived nearly half a day. In comment on this case Battey mentions an instance in which a mill-sawyer was run over by 20 or 30 logs, which produced innumerable fractures of his body, const.i.tuting him a surgical curiosity. He afterward completely recovered, and, as a consequence of his miraculous escape, became a soothsayer in his region. West reports a remarkable recovery after a compound fracture of the femur, fracture of the jaw, and of the radius, and possibly injury to the base of the skull, and injury to the spine.

There is on record an account of a woman of forty-three who, by muscular action in lifting a stone, fractured her p.u.b.es, external to the spine, on the left side. Not realizing her injury she continued hard work all that day, but fell exhausted on the next. She recovered in about a month, and was able to walk as well as ever.

Vinnedge reports recovery after concussion of the brain and extreme shock, a.s.sociated with fracture of the left femur, and comminuted fractures of the left tibia and fibula.

Tufnell mentions recovery after compound comminuted fracture of the leg, with simple fracture of both collar-bones, and dislocation of the thumb. Nankivell speaks of a remarkable recovery in an individual who suffered compound comminuted fracture of both legs, and fracture of the skull. It was found necessary to amputate the right thigh and left leg.

Erichsen effected recovery by rest alone, in an individual whose ribs and both clavicles were fractured by being squeezed.

Gilman records recovery after injuries consisting of fracture of the frontal bone near the junction with the right parietal; fracture of the right radius and ulna at the middle third and at the wrist; and compound fracture of the left radius and ulna, 1 1/4 inches above the wrist. Boulting reports a case of an individual who suffered compound fractures of the skull and humerus, together with extensive laceration of the thigh and chest, and yet recovered.

Barwell mentions recovery after amputation of the shoulder-joint, in an individual who had suffered fracture of the base of the skull, fracture of the jaw, and compound fracture of the right humerus. There was high delirium followed by imbecility in this case. Bonnet reports a case of fracture of both thighs, two right ribs, luxation of the clavicle, and accidental club-foot with tenotomy, with good recovery from all the complications. Beach speaks of an individual who suffered fracture of both thighs, and compound comminuted fracture of the tibia, fibula, and tarsal bones into the ankle-joint, necessitating amputation of the leg.

The patient not only survived the operation, but recovered with good union in both thighs. As ill.u.s.trative of the numerous fractures a person may sustain at one time, the London Medical Gazette mentions an injury to a girl of fourteen, which resulted in 31 fractures.

Remarkable Falls.--In this connection it is of interest to note from how great a height a person may fall without sustaining serious injury.

A remarkable fall of a miner down 100 meters of shaft (about 333 feet) without being killed is recorded by M. Reumeaux in the Bulletin de l'Industrie Minerale. Working with his brother in a gallery which issued on the shaft, he forgot the direction in which he was pushing a truck; so it went over, and he after it, falling into some mud with about three inches of water. As stated in Nature, he seems neither to have struck any of the wood debris, nor the sides of the shaft, and he showed no contusions when he was helped out by his brother after about ten minutes. He could not, however, recall any of his impressions during the fall. The velocity on reaching the bottom would be about 140 feet, and time of fall 4.12 seconds; but it is thought he must have taken longer. It appears strange that he should have escaped simple suffocation and loss of consciousness during a time sufficient for the water to have drowned him.

While intoxicated Private Gough of the 42d Royal Highlanders attempted to escape from the castle at Edinburgh. He fell almost perpendicularly 170 feet, fracturing the right frontal sinus, the left clavicle, tibia, and fibula. In five months he had so far recovered as to be put on duty again, and he served as an efficient soldier. There is an account of recovery after a fall of 192 feet, from a cliff in County Antrim, Ireland. Manzini mentions a man who fell from the dome of the Invalides in Paris, without sustaining any serious accident, and there is a record from Madrid of a much higher fall than this without serious consequence. In 1792 a bricklayer fell from the fourth story of a high house in Paris, landing with his feet on the dirt and his body on stone. He bled from the nose, and lost consciousness for about forty-five minutes; he was carried to the Hotel-Dieu where it was found that he had considerable difficulty in breathing; the regions about the external malleoli were contused and swollen, but by the eighth day the patient had recovered. In the recent reparation of the Hotel Raleigh in Washington, D.C., a man fell from the top of the building, which is above the average height, fracturing several ribs and rupturing his lung. He was taken to the Emergency Hospital where he was put to bed, and persistent treatment for shock was pursued; little hope of the man's recovery was entertained. His friends were told of his apparently hopeless condition. There were no external signs of the injury with the exception of the emphysema following rupture of the lung. Respiration was limited and thoracic movement diminished by adhesive straps and a binder; under careful treatment the man recovered.

Kartulus mentions an English boy of eight who, on June 1, 1879, while playing on the terrace in the third story of a house in Alexandria, in attempting to fly a kite in company with an Arab servant, slipped and fell 71 feet to a granite pavement below. He was picked up conscious, but both legs were fractured about the middle. He had so far recovered by the 24th of July that he could hobble about on crutches. On the 15th of November of the same year he was seen by Kartulus racing across the playground with some other boys; as he came in third in the race he had evidently lost little of his agility. Parrott reports the history of a man of fifty, weighing 196 pounds, who fell 110 feet from the steeple of a church. In his descent he broke a scaffold pole in two, and fell through the wooden roof of an engine-house below, breaking several planks and two strong joists, and landing upon some sacks of cement inside the house. When picked up he was unconscious, but regained his senses in a short time, and it was found that his injuries were not serious. The left metacarpal bones were dislocated from the carpal bones, the left tibia was fractured, and there were contusions about the back and hips. Twelve days later he left for home with his leg in plaster. Farber and McCa.s.sy report a case in which a man fell 50 feet perpendicularly through an elevator shaft, fracturing the skull. Pieces of bone at the superior angle of the occipital bone were removed, leaving the aura exposed for a s.p.a.ce one by four inches. The man was unconscious for four days, but entirely recovered in eighteen days, with only a slightly subnormal hearing as an after-effect of his fall.

For many years there have been persons who have given exhibitions of high jumps, either landing in a net or in the water. Some of these hazardous individuals do not hesitate to dive from enormous heights, being satisfied to strike head first or to turn a somersault in their descent. Nearly all the noted bridges in this country have had their "divers." The death of Odlum in his attempt to jump from Brooklyn bridge is well known. Since then it has been claimed that the feat has been accomplished without any serious injury. It is reported that on June 20, 1896, a youth of nineteen made a headlong dive from the top of the Eads bridge at St. Louis, Mo., a distance of 125 feet. He is said to have swum 250 feet to a waiting tug, and was taken on board without having been hurt.

Probably the most interesting exhibition of this kind that was ever seen was at the Royal Aquarium, London, in the summer of 1895. A part of the regular nightly performance at this Hall, which is familiar on account of its immensity, was the jump of an individual from the rafters of the large arched roof into a tank of water about 15 by 20 feet, and from eight to ten feet deep, sunken in the floor of the hall.

Another performer, dressed in his ordinary street clothes, was tied up in a bag and jumped about two-thirds of this height into the same tank, breaking open the bag and undressing himself before coming to the surface. In the same performance a female acrobat made a backward dive from the topmost point of the building into a net stretched about ten feet above the floor. Nearly every large acrobatic entertainment has one of these individuals who seem to experience no difficulty in duplicating their feats night after night.

It is a common belief that people falling from great heights die in the act of descent. An interview with the sailor who fell from the top-gallant of an East Indiaman, a height of 120 feet, into the water, elicited the fact that during the descent in the air, sensation entirely disappeared, but returned in a slight degree when he reached the water, but he was still unable to strike out when rising to the surface. By personal observation this man stated that he believed that if he had struck a hard substance his death would have been painless, as he was sure that he was entirely insensible during the fall.

A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette, in speaking of the accidents which had happened in connection with the Forth Bridge, tells of a man who trusted himself to work at the height of 120 feet above the waters of the Firth, simply grasping a rope. His hands became numb with cold, his grasp relaxed, and he fell backward down into the water, but was brought out alive. In another instance a spanner fell a distance of 300 feet, knocked off a man's cap, and broke its way through a four-inch plank. Again, another spanner fell from a great height, actually tearing off a man's clothes, from his waistcoat to his ankle, but leaving him uninjured. On another occasion a staging with a number of workmen thereon gave way. Two of the men were killed outright by striking some portion of the work in their descent; two others fell clear of the girders, and were rescued from the Firth little worse for their great fall.

Resistance of Children to Injuries.--It is a remarkable fact that young children, whose bones, cartilages, and tissues are remarkably elastic, are sometimes able to sustain the pa.s.sage over their bodies of vehicles of great weight without apparent injury. There is a record early in this century of a child of five who was run over across the epigastrium by a heavy two-wheeled cart, but recovered without any bad symptoms.

The treatment in this case is quite interesting, and was as follows: venesection to faintness, castor oil in infusion of senna until there was a free evacuation of the bowels, 12 leeches to the abdomen and spine, and a saline mixture every two hours! Such depleting therapeutics would in themselves seem almost sufficient to provoke a fatal issue, and were given in good faith as the means of effecting a recovery in such a case. In a similar instances a wagon weighing 1200 pounds pa.s.sed over a child of five, with no apparent injury other than a bruise near the ear made by the wheel.

Infant-vitality is sometimes quite remarkable, a newly-born child sometimes surviving extreme exposure and major injuries. There was a remarkable instance of this kind brought to light in the Mullings vs.

Mullings divorce-case, recorded in The Lancet. It appeared that Mrs.

Mullings, a few hours after her confinement at Torquay, packed her newly-born infant boy in a portmanteau, and started for London. She had telegraphed Dr. J. S. Tulloch to meet her at Paddington, where he found his patient apparently in good condition, and not weak, as he expected in a woman shortly to be confined. On the way to her apartments, which had been provided by Dr. Tulloch, Mrs. Mullings remarked to the Doctor that she had already borne her child. Dr. Tulloch was greatly surprised, and immediately inquired what she had done with the baby.

She replied that it was in a box on top of the cab. When the box was opened the child was found alive. The Lancet comments on the remarkable fact that, shortly after confinement, a woman can travel six or seven hours in a railroad train, and her newly-born babe conveyed the same distance in a portmanteau, without apparent injury, and without attracting attention.

Booth reports a remarkable case of vitality of a newly-born child which came under his observation in October, 1894. An illegitimate child, abandoned by its mother, was left at the bottom of a cesspool vault; she claimed that ten hours before Booth's visit it had been accidentally dropped during an attempt to micturate. The infant lived despite the following facts: Its delivery from an ignorant, inexperienced, unattended negress; its cord not tied; its fall of 12 feet down the pit; its ten hours' exposure in the cesspool; its smothering by foul air, also by a heavy covering of rags, paper, and straw; its pounding by three bricks which fell in directly from eight feet above (some loose bricks were accidentally dislodged from the sides of the vault, in the maneuvers to extricate the infant); its lowered temperature previous to the application of hot bottles, blankets, and the administration of cardiac stimulants. Booth adds that the morning after its discovery the child appeared perfectly well, and some two months afterward was brought into court as evidence in the case. A remarkable case of infant vitality is given on page 117.

Operations in the Young and Old.--It might be of interest to mention that such a major operation as ovariotomy has been successfully performed in an infant. In a paper on infant ovariotomy, several instances of this nature are mentioned. Roemer successfully performed ovariotomy on a child one year and eight months old; Swartz, on a child of four; Barker, on a child of four; Knowsley Thornton, on a child of seven, and Spencer Wells Cupples, and Chenoweth, on children of eight.

Rein performed ovariotomy on a girl of six, suffering from a multilocular cyst of the left ovary. He expresses his belief that childhood and infancy are favorable to laparotomy.

Kidd removed a dermoid from a child of two years and eleven months; Hooks performed the same operation on a child of thirty months. Chiene extirpated an ovary from a child of three; Neville duplicated this operation in a child one month younger; and Alc.o.c.k performed ovariotomy on a child of three.

Successful ovariotomies are infrequent in the extremely aged. Bennett mentions an instance in a woman of seventy-five, and Davies records a similar instance. Borsini and Terrier cite instances of successful ovariotomy in patients of seventy-seven. Carmichael performed the operation at seventy-four. Owens mentions it at eighty; and Homans at eighty-two years and four months. Dewees records a successful case of ovariotomy in a woman over sixty-seven; Mc.n.u.tt reports a successful instance in a patient of sixty-seven years and six months; the tumor weighed 60 pounds, and there were extensive adhesions. Maury removed a monocystic ovarian tumor from a woman of seventy-four, his patient recovering. Pippingskold mentions an ovariotomy at eighty. Terrier describes double ovariotomy for fibromata in a woman of seventy-seven.

Aron speaks of an operation for pilous dermoid of the ovary in a woman of seventy-five. Shepherd reports a case of recurrent proliferous cyst in a woman of sixty-three, on whom successful ovariotomy was performed twice within nine months. Wells mentions an ovarian cyst in a woman of sixty-five, from which 72 pints of fluid were removed.

Hawkins describes the case of a musician, M. Rochard, who at the age of one hundred and seven was successfully operated on for strangulated hernia of upward of thirty hours' duration. The wound healed by first intention, and the man was well in two weeks. Fowler operated successfully for strangulated umbilical hernia on a patient of sixty-eight.

Repeated Operations.--Franzolini speaks of a woman of fifty on whom he performed six celiotomies between June, 1879, and April, 1887. The first operation was for fibrocystic disease of the uterus. Since the last operation the woman had had remarkably good health, and there was every indication that well-merited recovery had been effected. The Ephemerides contains an account of a case in which cystotomy was repeated four times, and there is another record of this operation having been done five times on a man. Instances of repeated Cesarean section are mentioned on page 130.

Before leaving this subject, we mention a marvelous operation performed by Billroth on a married woman of twenty-nine, after her sixth pregnancy. This noted operator performed, synchronously, double ovariotomy and resections of portions of the bladder and ileum, for a large medullary carcinomatous growth of the ovary, with surrounding involvement. Menstruation returned three months after the operation, and in fifteen months the patient was in good health in every way, with no apparent danger of recurrence of the disease.

Self-performed Surgical Operations.--There have been instances in which surgeons and even laymen have performed considerable operations upon themselves. On the battlefield men have amputated one of their own limbs that had been shattered. In such cases there would be little pain, and premeditation would not be brought into play in the same degree as in the case of M. Clever de Maldigny, a surgeon in the Royal Guards of France, who successfully performed a lithotomy on himself before a mirror. He says that after the operation was completed the urine flowed in abundance; he dressed the wound with lint dipped in an emollient solution, and, being perfectly relieved from pain, fell into a sound sleep. On the following day, M. Maldigny says, he was as tranquil and cheerful as if he had never been a sufferer. A Dutch blacksmith and a German cooper each performed lithotomy on themselves for the intense pain caused by a stone in the bladder. Tulpius, Walther, and the Ephemerides each report an instance of self-performed cystotomy.

The following case is probably the only instance in which the patient, suffering from vesical calculus, tried to crush and break the stone himself. J. B., a retired draper, born in 1828, while a youth of seventeen, sustained a fracture of the leg, rupture of the urethra, and laceration of the perineum, by a fall down a well, landing astride an iron bar. A permanent perineal fistula was established, but the patient was averse to any operative remedial measure. In the year 1852 he became aware of the presence of a calculus, but not until 1872 did he ask for medical a.s.sistance. He explained that he had introduced a chisel through his perineal fistula to the stone, and attempted to comminute it himself and thus remove it, and by so doing had removed about an ounce of the calculus. The physician started home for his forceps, but during the interval, while walking about in great pain, the man was relieved by the stone bursting through the perineum, falling to the floor, and breaking in two. Including the ounce already chiselled off, the stone weighed 14 1/2 ounces, and was 10 5/8 inches in its long circ.u.mference. B. recovered and lived to December, 1883, still believing that he had another piece of stone in his bladder.

In Holden's "Landmarks" we are told that the operation of dividing the Achilles tendon was first performed by an unfortunate upon himself, by means of a razor. According to Patterson, the late Mr. Symes told of a patient in North Scotland who, for incipient hip-disease, had the cautery applied at the Edinburgh Infirmary with resultant great relief.

After returning home to the country he experienced considerable pain, and despite his vigorous efforts he was unable to induce any of the men to use the cautery upon him; they termed it "barbarous treatment." In desperation and fully believing in the efficacy of this treatment as the best means of permanently alleviating his pain, the crippled Scotchman heated a poker and applied the cautery himself.

We have already mentioned the marvelous instances of Cesarean sections self-performed, and in the literature of obstetric operations many of the minor type have been done by the patient herself. In the foregoing cases it is to be understood that the operations have been performed solely from the inability to secure surgical a.s.sistance or from the incapacity to endure the pain any longer. These operations were not the self-mutilations of maniacs, but were performed by rational persons, driven to desperation by pain.

Possibly the most remarkable instances of extensive loss of blood, with recoveries, are to be found in the older records of venesection. The chronicles of excessive bleeding in the olden days are well known to everybody. Perhaps no similar practice was so universally indulged in.

Both in sickness and in health, depletion was indicated, and it is no exaggeration to say that about the hospital rooms at times the floors were covered with blood. The reckless way in which venesection was resorted to, led to its disuse, until to-day it has so vanished from medical practice that even its benefits are overlooked, and depletion is brought about in some other manner. Turning to the older writers, we find Burton describing a patient from whom he took 122 ounces of blood in four days. Dover speaks of the removal of 111 and 190 ounces; Galen, of six pounds; and Haen, of 114 ounces. Taylor relates the history of a case of asphyxia in which he produced a successful issue by extracting one gallon of blood from his patient during twelve hours. Lucas speaks of 50 venesections being practiced during one pregnancy. Van der Wiel performed venesection 49 times during a single pregnancy. Balmes mentions a case in which 500 venesections were performed in twenty-five years. Laugier mentions 300 venesections in twenty-six months.

Osiander speaks of 8000 ounces of blood being taken away in thirty-five years. Pechlin reports 155 venesections in one person in sixteen years, and there is a record of 1020 repeated venesections.

The loss of blood through spontaneous hemorrhage is sometimes remarkable. Fabricius Hilda.n.u.s reports the loss of 27 pounds of blood in a few days; and there is an older record of 40 pounds being lost in four days. Horstius, Fabricius Hilda.n.u.s, and Schenck, all record instances of death from hemorrhage of the gums. Tulpius speaks of hemoptysis lasting chronically for thirty years, and there is a similar record of forty years' duration in the Ephemerides. Chapman gives several instances of extreme hemorrhage from epistaxis. He remarks that Bartholinus has recorded the loss of 48 pounds of blood from the nose; and Rhodius, 18 pounds in thirty-six hours. The Ephemerides contains an account of epistaxis without cessation for six weeks. Another writer in an old journal speaks of 75 pounds of blood from epistaxis in ten days.

Chapman also mentions a case in which, by intestinal hemorrhage, eight gallons of blood were lost in a fortnight, the patient recovering. In another case a pint of blood was lost daily for fourteen days, with recovery. The loss of eight quarts in three days caused death in another case; and Chapman, again, refers to the loss of three gallons of blood from the bowel in twenty-four hours. In the case of Michelotti, recorded in the Transactions of the Royal Society, a young man suffering from enlargement of the spleen vomited 12 pounds of blood in two hours, and recovered.

In hemorrhoidal hemorrhages, Lieutaud speaks of six quarts being lost in two days; Hoffman, of 20 pounds in less than twenty-four hours, and Panaroli, of the loss of one pint daily for two years.

Arrow-Wounds.--According to Otis the ill.u.s.trious Baron Percy was wont to declare that military surgery had its origin in the treatment of wounds inflicted by darts and arrows; he used to quote Book XI of the Iliad in behalf of his belief, and to cite the cases of the patients of Chiron and Machaon, Menelaus and Philoctetes, and Eurypiles, treated by Patroclus; he was even tempted to believe with s.e.xtus that the name iatros, medicus, was derived from ios, which in the older times signified "sagitta," and that the earliest function of our professional ancestors was the extraction of arrows and darts. An instrument called beluleum was invented during the long Peloponnesian War, over four hundred years before the Christian era. It was a rude extracting-forceps, and was used by Hippocrates in the many campaigns in which he served. His immediate successor, Diocles, invented a complicated instrument for extracting foreign bodies, called graphiscos, which consisted of a canula with hooks. Otis states that it was not until the wars of Augustus that Heras of Cappadocia designed the famous duck-bill forceps which, with every conceivable modification, has continued in use until our time. Celsus instructs that in extracting arrow-heads the entrance-wound should be dilated, the barb of the arrow-head crushed by strong pliers, or protected between the edges of a split reed, and thus withdrawn without laceration of the soft parts. According to the same authority, Paulus Aegineta also treated fully of wounds by arrow-heads, and described a method used in his time to remove firmly-impacted arrows. Albucasius and others of the Arabian school did little or nothing toward aiding our knowledge of the means of extracting foreign bodies. After the fourteenth century the attention of surgeons was directed to wounds from projectiles impelled by gunpowder. In the sixteenth century arrows were still considerably used in warfare, and we find Pare a delineating the treatment of this cla.s.s of injuries with the sovereign good sense that characterized his writings. As the use of firearms became prevalent the literature of wounds from arrows became meager, and the report of an instance in the present day is very rare.

Bill has collected statistics and thoroughly discussed this subject, remarking upon the rapidity with which American Indians discharge their arrows, and states that it is exceptional to meet with only a single wound. It is commonly believed that the Indian tribes make use of poisoned arrows, but from the reports of Bill and others, this must be a very rare custom. Ashhurst states that he was informed by Dr. Sch.e.l.l, who was stationed for some time at Fort Laramie, that it is the universal custom to dip the arrows in blood, which is allowed to dry on them; it is not, therefore, improbable that septic material may thus be inoculated through a wound.