[p. 253]still be by no means so fleshy as the sound limb. The following observations are a proof of this: those persons who are weasel-armed (galiancones) from birth, owing to dislocation of the humerus, or when the accident has happened to them before they have attained their full growth, such persons have the bone of the arm shortened, but those of the fore-arm and hand are little inferior in size to the sound, for the reasons which have been stated, because the humerus is the bone nearest to the joint affected, and, on that account, it is shorter than natural; but the fore-arm is not equally affected by the accident, because the joint at which the bones of the arm and forearm are articulated remains in its natural condition, and the hand is still further distant than the fore-arm from the seat of the injury. Such are the reasons why certain of the bones in this case increase in growth, and certain do not. The laborious office of the hand contributes much to the development of the flesh in the fore-arm and hand, for whatever work is done by the hand, these weasel-armed persons strive to do no less effectually with the other hand than with the sound; for the arms do not support the weight of the body like the legs, and the work performed by them is light. From exercise, then, the fleshy parts on the hand and fore-arm are not atrophied in weasel-armed persons, and by these means the arm, too, gains flesh. But in dislocation inward at the hip-joint, whether from birth or from childhood, the fleshy parts, on that account, are much more atrophied than those of the hand, because the patients cannot exercise the leg. Another proof will be given in the observations which will be presently stated, that these things are such as I things are such as I have represented.
Part 54
When the head of the femur is dislocated outward, the limb in these cases, when compared with the other, appears shortened, and this is natural, for the head of the femur no longer rests on a bone as in dislocation inward, but along the side of a bone which naturally inclines to the side, and it is lodged in flesh of a pulpy and yielding nature, and on that account it appears more shortened. Inwardly, the thigh about the perineum appears more hollow and flabby, but externally the buttock is more rounded, from the head of the thigh having slipped outward, but
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