LIVERPOOL NORTHERN DISPENSARY

Abstract

A BOY, aged 8, was admitted on the afternoon of Oct. 31, in consequence of an accident, in which the left leg had been severed from the body. He had, it seemed, been riding behind a cab, and had somehow slipped, with his leg between the spokes of the wheel. When brought into the hospital, it was found that the end of the femur, covered only by its articular cartilage, was projecting out of the soft parts. The skin was cleanly torn, all round, a Tery little way above the flexure of the joint. The popliteal vessels were of course exposed in the wound, but did not bleed. Notwithstanding the little hemorrhage, he was in a state of great depression, and had suffered some severe injury about the pelvis. As this injury, however, did not affect the treatment of the case, and as examination in that part gave great pain, it was not further investigated. On examining the severed leg, it was found that the capsular and crucial ligaments of the knee had been torn close to their insertion into the femur, and the extensor tendon torn away from the patella, leaving that bone attached to the tibia. The most extraordinary feature in the irnjury, however, was that the whole length (as it appeared) of the sciatic nerve remained attached to the leg. The length of nerve above the knee-joint was 191 inches, while the length of the leg was 10 inches only; and the cord terminated above in two smaller branches, which were judged to be parts of the