This crooked union is prevented by bending the thigh and relaxing the muscles of the hip. This object is accomplished by using the double incline planes or the double incline planes, slung, shown in figs. 52 and 53.
Fig. 51.—Fracture below the trochanters; bone in angular union.
Double incline planes are sometimes employed alone. The limb is raised over a wooden frame about 8 inches broad, with a double slope high enough at the apex for the leg and foot to hang unsupported down the further side (fig. 52). It is well padded before being applied, and the leg and thigh secured to it by a roller passed round the limb and plane, or better, a trough of gutta-percha may be moulded to the limb while it is on the plane, and when set, screwed down to the wood at one or two points; in this the limb rests securely.
Fig. 52.—Double incline planes.
Slinging the double incline planes was practised many years ago by Mayor of Lausanne, and has been much used recently. It is an apparatus very easy for the patient, and particularly well suited for compound fractures of the thigh, for fractures near the trochanters that require a flexed position, or for fractures of the neck of the femur where the patient’s feebleness does not permit the constraint of the long splint.
Apparatus.—1. A bent wire frame (see fig. 53) with a separate foot-piece.
2. Two pulleys, a rope with tent stretchers passing up to hooks in the ceiling, or some suitable support.
3. One long and one short soft pad.