[ 6 7 8 ] 
patients were, therefore, fometimes tormented, (in 
hopes of a reduction) without any advantage j and 
this want of fuccefs made the furgeons, at other 
times, abandon their patients, when they might have 
been relieved. The moderns have fallen into a con- 
trary extreme, but attended with as bad confe- 
quences. Boerhaave, in particular, was of opinion, 
that there never was a dillocation of the thigh bone 
by any external violence, but that the head of it was 
commonly broken off at its neck, near the great 
trochanter. The opinion of fo learned a man has 
had fuch weight with the generality of the profeffion, 
that it has been taken for granted, that, in thefe 
cafes, the neck of the bone was always broken : con- 
fequently, the redu&ion was feldom attempted, and 
the unfortunate patients remained cripples during the 
reft of their lives. But the point is now, I think, 
cleared up, beyond the pofiibility of a doubt. 
In the fecond volume of the memoirs of the royal 
academy of furgery at Paris, there are two cafes re- 
lated, to fhew the refources of nature, where luxa- 
tions of the thigh bone have not been reduced. Here 
it appears, (from examination after death) that, in 
the ftrft cafe, the bone was thrown out upwards 
and outwards, the cotyloid cavity greatly diminifhed 
in fize, and its figure changed from round to oval. 
The head of the femur was received into another 
cavity formed upon the os ileum, under the glutaeus 
minimus, which ferved it as a capfula, to fecure it 
within this preternatural cavity. This accident was 
occafioned by a fall, when the patient was a child. 
She was afterwards able to walk about, though fhe 
continued a cripple to the time of her death, which 
happened 
