Part 51
There are four modes of dislocation at the hip-joint: of which modes,
dislocation inward takes place most frequently, outward, the most
frequently of all the other modes; and it sometimes takes place backward
and forward, but seldom. When, therefore, dislocation takes place
inward, the leg appears longer than natural, when compared with the
other leg, for two reasons truly; for the bone which articulates with
the hip-joint is carried from above down to the ischium where it rises
up to the pubes, upon it, then, the head of the femur rests, and the
neck of the femur is lodged in the cotyloid foramen (
foramen thyroideum?).
The buttock appears hollow externally, from the head of the thighbone
having shifted inward, and the extremity of the femur at the knee
is turned outward, and the leg and foot in like manner. The foot then
being turned outward, physicians, from ignorance, bring the sound
leg to it and not it to the sound leg; on this account, the injured
limb appears to be much longer than the sound one, and in many other
cases similar circumstances
[p. 250]lead to error in judgment. Neither does
the limb at the groin admit of flexion as in the sound limb, and the
head of the bone is felt at the perineum too prominent. These, then,
are the symptoms attending dislocation of the thigh inward.