[p. 292]cicatrices.
The danger is greatest in the greatest joints, and those highest up.
The only chance of recovery is, if they are not reduced, except at
the fingers and hand, and in these cases the danger should be announced
beforehand. Attempts at reduction to be made on the first or second
day; or, if not accomplished then, on the tenth, by no means on the
fourth. Reduction by levers. Treatment:-As in injuries of the bones
of the head, and the part is to be kept hot; and it is better to give
hellebore immediately after the parts have been reduced. With regard
to the other bones, it should be well known, that, if replaced, death
will be the consequence; the more surely and expeditiously, the greater
the articulation, and the more high its situation. Dislocation of
the foot is attended with spasm (tetanus) and gangrene; and if, upon
its being replaced, any of these symptoms come on, the chance of recovery,
if there be any chance, is in displacing it anew; for spasms do not
arise from relaxation, but from tension of the parts.
Part 34
Excision, either of articular bones or of pieces of bones, when not
high up in the body, but about the foot or the hand, is generally
followed by recovery, unless the patient die at once from deliquium
animi. Treatment:-As in injuries of the head; warmth.
Part 35
Sphacelus of the fleshy parts is produced by the tight compression
of bleeding wounds, and by pressure in the fractures of bones, and
by blackening, arising from bandages. And in those cases in which
a portion of the thigh or arm, both the bones and the flesh drop off,
many recover, the case being less dangerous than many others. In cases,
then, connected with fracture of the bones, the separation of the
flesh quickly takes place, but the separation of the bone, at the
boundary of its denuded part, is slower in taking place. But the parts
below the seat of the injury, and the sound portion of the body, are
to be previously taken away (for they die previously), taking care
to avoid producing pain, for deliquium animi may occasion death. The
bone of the thigh in such a case came away on the eightieth day, but
the leg was removed on the twentieth day. The bones of the leg, in
a certain case, came away at the middle of the sixtieth
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