EXTRACAPSULAR FRACTURES OF THE FEMUR IN THE AGED: A Contribution to the Merits of the Russell Treatment

¹ The Surgical Department of the Northwestern University Medical School.

The Russell treatment is the simplest and most efficient heretofore described method for fractures of the femur in its upper two thirds outside [SEE THE FIGURE FIG. 5-A, 5-B AND 5-C IN SOURCE PDF] of the joint capsule. If the surgeons who are unfamiliar with the method were aware of the accurate traction that the Russell apparatus exerts in the longitudinal axis of the femur, and were to give it due trial, its popularity would greatly increase and direct skeletal force would not be so popular in the treatment of similar fractures in this region.

The introduction of the Wilkie apparatus into the Russell treatment better adapts the latter to extracapsular fractures in the aged, as pulmonary complications are reduced to a minimum. This reduction of complications is due to two reasons: (1) it is no longer necessary to lie flat on the back for six weeks; (2) after three weeks and until six weeks after the injury, while in the Wilkie apparatus, the patient may be shifted in bed to any position in the horizontal plane. After the seventh week consolidation is usually completed in aged patients and the Wilkie apparatus is removed.

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