81. The neck of the os femoris, being surrounded by a large mass of
soft parts, and protected by the great trochanter, which forms its
external boundary, is almost completely secured from the immediate
action of external bodies, and consequently from direct fractures.
Whenever it sustains a fracture, it is always by a true counter-stroke,
resulting from a fall, sometimes on the great trochanter, and at other
times on the sole of the foot or the knee. But fractures produced
in the first mode, are much more frequently met with in practice,
than those produced in the second, doubtless because, in the latter,
the motion is weakened by the extent of parts through which it is
distributed, previously to its arrival at the neck of the os femoris.
Out of thirty observations made by Desault, on fractures of this
description, twenty-four of them were produced by falls on the side.
All those recorded by Sabatier, in his interesting memoir, appear to
have been produced by similar falls.
§ XIII.