The hyoid may be broken by direct violence, either locally applied or by forcing the head backward. Fracture of the bone itself is not so serious as the lesions which accompany or follow it, either hemorrhage or inflammation, with edema of the larynx, which may impede respiration or cause strangulation. Fracture produces difficulty in breathing, swelling, and pain on talking. It is doubtful if bony union is attained, but fibrous union answers equally well. The treatment consists essentially of physiological rest. Edema may necessitate tracheotomy, and dysphagia feeding by an esophageal tube or by the rectum. Should the fracture be compound, or should a fragment be displaced so as to be detected, it may be removed through suitable incision.
FRACTURES OF THE LARYNX.
This may be fractured by injuries of the same character as those which fracture the hyoid, except that it is more exposed to the direct violence of a blow, as from a baseball. In elderly people in whom calcification of the laryngeal cartilages has occurred fracture is more dangerous than in the young. Injuries which produce these lesions are of a serious nature, as prompt swelling, either from hemorrhage or edema, occurs and threatens respiration. For illustration a death occurred on the baseball field within a few minutes after reception of a blow upon the front of the neck with laryngeal fracture; the cause of death was suffocation due to swelling, which might have been averted if tracheotomy could have been performed. In the milder injuries of this kind much can be done with sprays of cocaine and adrenalin, to quiet laryngeal irritation and reduce vascularity.
FRACTURES OF THE STERNUM AND RIBS.
Fracture of the sternum in childhood is exceedingly rare. In adults it may occur in connection with other injuries or as a solitary lesion. Such a fracture, of itself, would indicate in most cases excessive violence. It is usually more or less transverse, the periosteum being rarely so torn as to permit of much escape of blood. Cases are recorded in which it has been broken in straining during the act of parturition. It is most commonly injured by compressing and crushing injuries.
Sternal fractures are followed by much pain, aggravated by deep respiration and made worse by pressure. Sometimes displacement can be made out, while crepitus may be detected with the stethoscope. Occasionally there is sufficient deformity to make the injury apparent at a glance.
Displacement should be reduced and apposition then maintained by a plaster-of-Paris jacket or other suitable apparatus. It is advisable in some cases to anesthetize the patient and to make a sufficient opening that instruments may be used by which fragments may be lifted or pried into place. This should be done under aseptic precautions.
Diastases or separations of ribs or cartilages from the sternum or from each other have essentially the dignity of fractures, are recognized by the same general signs, and are treated in the same general way. A cartilage may snap in the young, and in the old, when calcified, may break as would a bone or even a pipe-stem.
The ribs are usually broken in their lateral aspects, but rarely between the head and angle. They may be fractured by muscle action or by external violence, examples of the former being violent efforts at lifting or sneezing. Violence may be applied in so many ways that it is not necessary to specify them. Fractures may pertain to one or to several ribs in proportion to the extent and violence of the exciting injury. In some crushing injuries an entire section of the chest wall may be broken loose and depressed, this corresponding to a depressed fracture of the skull. Rib fractures are usually of themselves innocent, but may be made serious by complications, as when the pleura is torn, or an intercostal artery bleeds profusely, or when a jagged fragment of bone first scratches and then perforates a lung. This will lead first to the outpour of blood and then of pleuritic fluid, by which in a short time the lung will be separated from the chest wall. Should infection occur through the injured lung, i. e., entrance of germ-ladened air, then empyema may seriously complicate matters and later necessitate operation. Even the heart has been injured, in several reported cases, by projecting fragments of bone. Gunshot fractures of the thoracic wall imply those features pertaining to every compound fracture, plus the injury possibly done to the lungs, heart, or mediastinal contents, such as hemothorax or pneumothorax.
The first and second ribs are so protected and the eleventh and twelfth so movable that by far the greater proportion of rib fractures pertain to the eight intervening ribs.