It is in general difficult to be mistaken with respect to the signs
which characterize fractures of the fore-arm. A mobility of the limb
where it was before inflexible; a crepitation almost always easily
perceived; a depression, sometimes evident, at the place of division;
a protuberance sometimes formed under the skin by the fragments; pain
produced by the motion of the part; a crack sometimes heard by the
patient, at the moment of the accident; an inability to perform the
motions of pronation and supination; the almost constant semi-flexion
of the fore-arm; such, together with the phenomena common to all
fractures, are those which essentially characterize this, and which
must generally remove all doubts which the swelling of the limb may
temporarily create respecting its existence.
6. There is a circumstance, however, where a fracture near to the
joint of the wrist, may give rise to appearances similar to a
luxation of that part. In both cases, indeed, a convexity behind,
and a depression before, or the reverse, are perceived, and are the
effect of a displacement of the fragments. But the styloid apophysis
being carefully examined, will always determine, according as it is
found above or below the deformity, from which of the two causes the
deformity arises. Besides, a greater mobility in one than in the other
affection, and a crepitation, will guard the practitioner from an
error, into which I saw a surgeon fall in the presence of Desault, whom
he called on to consult, in the case of a child six years old, which
laboured under a supposed luxation.
§ IV.