Details

GC.12911

Femur, distal fragment of a gunshot fracture of the right. From a young soldier wounded at Waterloo (1815). The site of the distal cartilage of conjugation forms a distinct fissure between the epiphysis and the diaphysis. The fracture has been irregular and comminuted and a portion of the femoral cortex has been impacted into the marrow ,; cavity. Medially a wedge-shaped aequestrum 63 mm. in length and involving proximally the whole thickness of the compact bone is in process of separation. Most of the anterior surface is covered with a thin veneer of smooth delicate light new bone marked with fine vertical striae. Medially and laterally the new bone is thicker and more irregular except at one part laterally where a superficial sequestrum has formed. Posteriorly the surface is more irregular, there has been more decalcif ication and about the middle of the popliteal surface the new bone forms a transverse ostepphytic ridge. In the immediate neighbourhood of the cartilage of conjugation the bone has undergone considerable rarefaction.

Nineteenth century