236 Complicated Fracture of the Trochanters. 



IV. An Account of a Case of complicated Fracture of 

 the Trochanters, in which they were completely bro- 

 ken from the Os Femoris. In a Letter from Wil- 

 liam P. C. Barton, M. D., Resident Physician, 

 and Surgeon, of the Pennsylvania Hospital, to the 

 Editor. 



Dear Sir, 



BELIEVING that any case of fracture of the 

 upper end of the femur, where dissection, after death, 

 may have thrown light on this important subject, can- 

 not prove uninteresting to surgeons, I have drawn up, 

 for your Journal, an account of one, which undoubtedly 

 merits their attention. From the surprizing extent of 

 the fracture, compared with the nature of the accident, 

 and the subsequent consequences and termination of it, 

 it is not a little instructive. 



Daniel Malony, a seaman, aged fifty-eight years, of 

 an infirm constitution, and intemperate habits in drink- 

 ing, had the misfortune, while walking, to break his 

 thigh-bone, by a fall on the pavement covered with 

 sleet. For the reduction of this fracture, he was 

 brought to the Pennsylvania Hospital, on the morning 

 of the 3d of February, an hour and a quarter after the 

 accident. 



Upon examination of the limb, by Dr. Hartshorne 

 and myself, it was found to be two inches and a half 

 shorter than the other ; the knee and point of the toes 

 were turned inwards, and the trochanter appeared to be 



