Transcript
Page 1: A SIMPLE TREATMENT OF FRACTURE OF THE CLAVICLE

1829

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of McGilI Uni-versity, and the first President of the CanadianMedical Council; upon Professor T. P. AndersonStuart, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at SydneyUniversity; and upon Dr. Alfred E. Thomson,surgeon to the New Somerset Hospital, Capetown.In the Order of the Bath Surgeon-General ArthurW. May, Medical Director-General of the Navy, hasbeen promoted K.C.B. In the Order of St. Michaeland St. George Dr. Frank G. Clemow, physician tothe British Embassy at Constantinople, delegate forGreat Britain to the International Board of Health Iat Constantinople, and delegate for Great Britainon the International Mixed Commission for theRevision of the Ottoman Sanitary Tariff, a well-known authority on sanitation in the East, especi-

, ally in connexion with cholera, has been made aC.M.G. Lieutenant - Colonel W. R. Edwards,C.M.G., I.M.S., and Colonel Courtenay ClarkeManifold, I.M.S., have received C.B.’s; and Lieu-tenant - Colonel W. Molesworth, I.M.S., Lieu-tenant-Colonel G. J. Hamilton Bell, I.M.S.,and Major E. D. Wilson Greig, I.M.S., assistantdirector of the Central Research Institute,Kasauli, have been made C.I.E.s. Major Charles E.Southon, I.M.S., chief plague medical officer in thePunjab, has been awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind goldmedal, and Dr. E. D. Rowland, resident surgeon atthe Public Hospital, Georgetown, British Guiana,has been appointed to the Imperial Service Order.Dr. Harold Robert Dacre Spitta, bacteriologist toHis Majesty’s Household, has been appointed M.V.O.It will be of interest to our readers to note also

among the new knights Mr. James Bradford, whosepractical philanthropy has taken medical directions;Mr. James G. Frazer, the distinguished anthro-

pologist and author of the "Golden Bough"; Mr.,James E. Jones, chairman of the Manchester Deafand Dumb Schools, who has done much for theeducation of the deaf and dumb; and Mr. JamesLeishman, chairman of the Scottish National HealthInsurance Commission.

A SIMPLE TREATMENT OF FRACTURE OF THE

CLAVICLE.

UNDER the title, Cure of Fracture of theClavicle in Ten Days," Dr. Couteaud described, at.a meeting of the Académie de Medecine on May 5th,a simplified form of a method devised by him.about ten years ago. As the method is very simple.and the results seem to be excellent it deserves tobe known in this country. The patient is kept inbed with the arm so placed as to produce con-tinuous extension of the fragments. There are

two successive positions. In the first the armhangs out of bed with the shoulder out of the:perpendicular. At first Dr. Couteaud recommendedthat this position (the position of reduction) shouldbe maintained for some days, but he found that thetime could be reduced to an hour or an hour and.a half. This is a great advantage, as the positionis uncomfortable. In the second position the arm,:flexed to a right angle, rests on a stool below thelevel of the bed. At first Dr. Couteaud maintainedthis position for two weeks, but he has nowreduced it to eight or ten days. In fractures treatedby this method the coaptation is perfect, and on thethird day the site may not be discoverable. Thecallus is never exuberant and the clavicle recoversits form. Both clavicles become equal again, andit has even been asserted that the fractured oneincreases in length by a centimetre. Even when the

treatment has not been adopted until some timeafter the fracture-sometimes as much as twoweeks-the results are good. Dr. Couteaud forbids

massage, as it injures the callus. but after con-solidation he allows massage of the soft parts andof the shoulder.

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ROGER BACON.

’4NOT so much a name as a ’nominis umbra,Roger Bacon has had long to wait for the recog-nition due to him from posterity." Thus writesa frequent correspondent who has found our briefallusion to Bacon’s Seventh Centenary inadequateto the occasion. We publish his supplementaryremarks with pleasure. " Only of late years, inthe later decades of last century, has Bacon’s work,or rather his influence, in speculation and researchreceived adequate appreciation from his country-men. Indeed, such appreciation as had up tothen been vouchsafed him came chiefly fromabroad-from the great Humboldt and the all-

accomplished Emile Charles, whose admirationwas so pronounced as to evoke a sympatheticresponse from English savants and thinkers suchas the able Positivist’ critic, Dr. J. H. Bridges,followed by such scholars as Dr. Rashdall and Mr.A. G. Little, and worthily supplemented by themasterly monograph in miniature’ of the PublicOrator of Cambridge University, Sir J. E. Sandys.Thanks to these commentators and apologists, theEnglish-speaking world, academic and non-academic,was in full sympathy with the University of Oxfordwhen on June 10th it celebrated the seventh

centenary of her illustrious, if long-neglected, son,and when, through the spokesmen of the occasion,Sir Archibald Geikie and Lord Curzon, hisstatue was unveiled in the University museumwith every accompaniment of well-inspired homageand classic eloquence." Our correspondent goes onto draw the following apt comparison between Rogerand Francis. "It is a noteworthy coincidence," hesays, "that the two great English seats of learningshould have produced two pioneers in speculationand research, not only bearing the same patronymic,but inspired by the same innovating genius,animated by the same instinct of revolt againstscholastic tradition, and finding in nature-study,pursued for its own sake, the master-key tothe interpretation of the Cosmos. Roger Bacon,of Oxford, was the legitimate progenitor ofFrancis Bacon, of Cambridge, and if theauthor of the Novum Organum’ and the ’DeAugmentis’ was but partially aware of it, hewas nevertheless a genuine product or develop-ment of his thirteenth century namesake-thescholar, the investigator, and the idealist, whoselife and work had prepared the field for him, clear-ing it of the overgrowth of Aristotelian authority,and creating an atmosphere in which alone the scien-tific spirit could breathe and energise. If RogerBacon, master as he was of the omne scibile’ asthen understood, chafed against its limitations andstrove to surmount them, he did so in responseto a stimulus that survived him as a progressiveforce-a bequest in inspiration and in method ofwhich, centuries later, Francis Bacon was the

legitimate heir and beneficiary. Another proof ofthe consanguinity, intellectual and moral, of thetwo masters reveals itself in their attitudeto religion, in their belief that there is no

antagonism between nature-study and the wor-

ship of the Divine. ’I I would rather,’ saysFrancis Bacon, believe all the fables in the

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