sitively no fracture. Boerhaave cites a curious instance in which a
surgeon attempted to stop hemorrhage from a wounded radial artery by
the application of a caustic, but the material applied made such
inroads as to destroy the median artery and thus brought about a fatal
hemorrhage.

Spontaneous fractures are occasionally seen, but generally in advanced
age, although muscular action may be the cause. There are several cases
on record in which the muscular exertion in throwing a stone or ball,
or in violently kicking the leg, has fractured one or both of the bones
of an extremity. In old persons intracapsular fracture may be caused by
such a trivial thing as turning in bed, and even a sudden twist of the
ankle has been sufficient to produce this injury. In a boy of thirteen
Storrs has reported fracture of the femur within the acetabulum. In
addition to the causes enumerated, inflammation of osseous tissue, or
osteoid carcinoma, has been found at the seat of a spontaneous fracture.

One of the most interesting subjects in the history of surgery is the
gradual evolution of the rational treatment of dislocations. Possibly
no portion of the whole science was so backward as this. Thirty-five
centuries ago Darius, son of Hydaspis, suffered a simple luxation of
the foot; it was not diagnosed in this land of Apis and of the deified
discoverer of medicine. Among the wise men of Egypt, then in her acme
of civilization, there was not one to reduce the simple luxation which
any student of the present day would easily diagnose and successfully
treat. Throughout the dark ages and down to the present century, the
hideous and unnecessary apparatus employed, each decade bringing forth
new types, is abundantly pictured in the older books on surgery; in
some almost recent works there are pictures of windlasses and of
individuals making superhuman efforts to pull the luxated member
back--all of which were given to the student as advisable means of
treatment.

Relative to anomalous dislocations the field is too large to be
discussed here, but there are two recent ones worthy of mention.
Bradley relates an instance of death following a subluxation of the
right humerus backward on the scapula It could not be reduced because
the tendon of the biceps lay between the head of the humerus and a
piece of the bone which was chipped off.

Baxter-Tyrie reports a dislocation of the shoulder-joint, of unusual
origin, in a man who was riding a hor