VOL. LVI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 349 



XXXIII. On the Extraction of 3 Inches and 1 Lines of the Bone of the Upper 

 jirm, which was follotved by a Regeneration of the Bony Matter; with a 

 Description of a Machine made use of to keep the Upper and Lower Pieces of 

 the Bone at their proper Distances, during the Time that the Regeneration was 

 taking Place; and which may also be of Service in Fractures happening near 

 the Head of that Bone. By Mr. Le Cat, F. R. S. p. 270. 

 Francis Romain, forinerly a foot-soldier, aged 41, received a gun-shot wound 

 in the left arm, about 1 fingers breadth below the head of the bone of the upper 

 arm, which had been considerably shattered in this place by the ball. Mr. 

 Bousselard, his surgeon, found the situation of the wound too high to risk, 

 amputation. After 7 months attendance however, the patient appeared to be 

 cured; he was put on the list of invalids, and stationed with one of those com- 

 panies at Dieppe. 



Encouraged by good health, he ventured to undertake the laborious business 

 of a ship-wright ; but the great fatigue produced abscesses in the arm which 

 had been lately healed; and he was admitted into the hospital in the year 1755. 

 Mr. Le C. immediately made free incisions and counter-openings in the parts 

 which contained the matter, and extracted some splinters of bone; he then 

 applied a proper bandage, and after the separation of several bony fragments, the 

 cure was completed, at least a good cicatrice was formed. The man returned to 

 his work, which was then going forward at Rouen, and was employed in carrying 

 wood for the construction of flat-bottomed boats. His limbs in general were 

 strong enough to support these loads; but his left arm, in which he had received 

 the wound, was of little use to him, being shorter and weaker than the other. 



March 15th, 1760, being seized with a pleurisy and peripneumony, he was 

 brought back into the hospital. After his recovery from this disease, an abscess 

 was formed in the injured arm, which made an opening for itself in the fore-part, 

 larger than a bullet. The arm was deprived of all motion, strength, and 

 connection; and the callus of the former fracture appeared to be entirely 

 destroyed by this fresh accident. In this state of the case, the patient being 

 brought from the infirmary into the ward designed for wounded persons, Mr.LeC. 

 passed his probe into the wound, and found the bone of the arm bare, and 

 carious to a very great extent: the middle of this carious part was rotten and 

 totally destroyed throughout its whole substance. Anodyne cataplasms were 

 applied to abate the inflammation and swelling which attended the nicer. 



April 15 th, Mr. Le C. began to put in execution the plan he had fixed on for 

 his cure ; the first intention of which was, to lay bare the carious part of the 

 bone in its whole length, which was rather more than 3 inches. The wound was 

 then filled with pads of lint, and the 2d operation deferred to the next day. It 

 was the opinion of the by-standers, that the arm should be taken off at the 



