Remarks upon fractures of the scapula, with cases presenting striking peculiarities : read before the Medical Society of the State of Georgia, at their annual meeting in Augusta, April 8, 1857 / by L.A. Dugas.

  • Dugas, L. A. (Louis Alexander), 1806-1884.
Date:
1857
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks upon fractures of the scapula, with cases presenting striking peculiarities : read before the Medical Society of the State of Georgia, at their annual meeting in Augusta, April 8, 1857 / by L.A. Dugas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    FRACTURES OF THE SCAPULA. The object of this paper is to take a hasty view of the injuries to which the Scapula may be subjected, to direct special attention to fractures of the Neck of this bone, and to relate two cases pre- senting important peculiarities hitherto unnoticed by systematic writers. Fractures of the Scapula are comparatively rare: a fact that may be attributed alike to the security of its position and to the yield- ing nature of its attachments. In consequence of its mobility, shocks which might otherwise occasion serious fractures, are rare- ly followed by anything more than a contusion of the soft parts. A fracture of this bone may therefore be usually considered as in- dicative of a very considerable degree of violence. The relative frequency of Fractures of the Scapula may perhaps be inferred from the statistics of Middlesex Hospital and of the Hotel-Dieu. In the former of these institutions, according to Lons- dale, out of nineteen hundred and one cases of Fracture there were eighteen of the Scapula, of which eight implicated the body, eight the acromion process, and two the neck of the bone. (Pirrie's Sys. of Surg., p. 146, Am. ed.) At the Hotel-Dieu there were but four Fractures of the Scapula in twenty-three hundred and fifty-eight cases. (Malgaigne. Tr. des Fract., &c, p. 498.) On the other hand, I have seen, in my private practice alone, four cases of Fracture of the Scapula, although the number of other fractures has not been unusually great. Fractures of the Scapula may implicate the body of the bone, its spine, its processes, or its neck. Let us study them in each of these regions.