246 MOEBID ANATOMY.
tion, so far as the disease extends ; but above and below this it is quite healthy. 1856. Dr. H. J. Bigelow.
1323. Lower half of the femur, showing the effects of former inflammation and necrosis.
From a man, set. twenty-seven years. (Hospital, 125, 106.) About twenty years before, he had typhoid fever, followed by " fever sores " about the lower part of the thigh, that kept open for about seven years, with occasional discharge of bone. He then got well, and remained so until 1861, when he went into the army, and after much exposure there came on disease of the knee-joint ; for this last amputation was performed Feb. 10th, 1866, and on the 29th of March he died of pyemia.
The shaft of the femur, which has been sawed longitudi- nally, is moderately enlarged, rough and porous upon the surface ; and just above the condyles, anteriorly, shows a defined cavity in, and almost extending through, the sub- stance of the bone, large enough to admit the end of the forefinger, smooth and cicatrized for the most part upon the inner surface. The central cavity of the bone is mostly obliterated. 1866. Dr. E. M. Hodges.
1324. Great disease of the femur ; the result of chronic inflam- mation and necrosis. The lower 5J in. of the bone is hol- lowed out into a large cavity, and surrounded incompletely by a thin shell of diseased bone. Amputation having been performed immediately above, the bone is seen to be mis- shapen, and the site of the central cavity is occupied by a solid, bony formation, for the closure of the cavity below ; the structure of the bone around this solid portion being cancellous. Knee-joint flexed ; anchylosis, partly bony. The tibia is healthy ; but, from a change in the articular sur- face, the bone is inclined outward.
The patient was nineteen years of age ; and the disease, which was of eleven years' duration, came on as an acute and very severe inflammation. In ten weeks dead bone was felt, and the knee was very strongly flexed. A year afterward the bone was removed, the limb was straight- ened, and for three years small pieces of bone only came away. His general health was good after the first few
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