A practical treatise on fractures and dislocations . within the Capsule. Causes.—In no other fractures do the predisposing causes play soimportant a part as in fractures of the neck of the femur, and thiswhether within or without the capsule ; indeed, experience has shownthat without the concurrence of those pathological changes whichusually accompany old age, these fractures can scarcely occur. SirAstley Cooper thought that the majority of fractures of the neck afterthe fiftieth year were intra-capsular; but Robert Smith has given usthe ages of sixty persons having fractures of the neck of th
A practical treatise on fractures and dislocations . within the Capsule. Causes.—In no other fractures do the predisposing causes play soimportant a part as in fractures of the neck of the femur, and thiswhether within or without the capsule ; indeed, experience has shownthat without the concurrence of those pathological changes whichusually accompany old age, these fractures can scarcely occur. SirAstley Cooper thought that the majority of fractures of the neck afterthe fiftieth year were intra-capsular; but Robert Smith has given usthe ages of sixty persons having fractures of the neck of the femur,and the average age of thirty-two in whom the fractures were withinthe capsule, is sixty-two years, while the average age of twenty-eightin whom the fractures were extra-capsular, is sixty-eight years. Mal-gaigne has referred to this testimony in proof of the inaccuracy of theopinion held by Sir Astley Cooper; but I trust it will not be regardedimpertinent or hypercritical for us to inquire how Mr. Smith became 354 FRACTURES OF THE Fracture within the capsule. Fig- H!- possessed of the ages of all these per- sons from whom these specimens wereobtained; for more than half of thewhole number, that is, just thirty-two,have their ages set down in round deci-mals, such as 50, 60, 70, &c, and itwould be easy to show by the inevita-ble law of chances that this could notpossibly be a true statement. If does not pretend to have giventhe ages with accuracy, but only to havearrived as near to the truth as his sourcesof information would permit, then I pro-test that these tables do not constituteproper evidence in relation to this point;and until better evidence is furnished Ishall continue to think, with Sir AstleyCooper, that fractures within the cap-sule belong generally to an older classof subjects than fractures without thecapsule. This opinion, confirmed by my own experience, does not,however, as Malgaigne seems to think, imply that fractures withinthe caps
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