Recent advances in fracture treatment. Part 1.

This film promotes the novel (at the time) method of providing fracture patients with freedom of movement, which using the examples given, means that the patients are fit and well without further rehabilitation; 'reduction, fixation' and 'continued use of the limbs'. The patients are all ordinary people who appear to have work-related injuries. They are shown recovered going about their everyday lives. The intertitles explain this in detail. First, Colles' fracture treated with Carr's splint is demonstrated ('old method'); the patient is an old man. It is shown how this splint discourages movement through 'fear'. The ensuing stiffness requires many further weeks of treatment. The new method is shown; a woman makes a bed, she peels potatoes in close up and then rotates her arm and wiggles her fingers. The case of a bus driver follows. We view his x-rays and then he's seen cleaning the windows of his bus and then 8 weeks later vigorously turning the hand-crank on the bus he drives (to start it). Next, the old method versus the new method of treating a fracture of Carpal Scaphoid; a woman demonstrates lack of movement in her arm. In an x-ray, disuse calsification of the bones is in evidence. A man wearing worker's overalls demonstrates his flexibility; then proceeds to set up step-ladders and climbs up. Fracture neck of femur - old method; an immobilised patient lies on a bed; his knee is extremely stiff. The knee is pinned and movement returns after surgery. The next patient, a 74 year old woman, beams at the camera. The following sequence is entitled 'Femoral Neck Folies', the 1936 Beauty Chorus and ladies in tandem are seated moving their limbs in sync. A labourer with the same injury is seen recovered, carrying a spade. Pott's fracture - old method which is highly restrictive contrasts with the new method which has the patient walking around the next day. Crush fractures of the spine, old method; a patient is bed bound whereas using the 'new' method, the patient has a cast around his torso but is moving freely. A taxi-driver with a similar injury stops his cab; footage shows how physical his job is. There is a sequence of nasty compound fractures (not for the faint-hearted); luckily if seen within the first few hours of injury the patient recovers well with demonstrable flexibility after a period of time (a trim woman walks in a garden and hits a tennis ball over a net). Kodak Safety Film title card.