Evening star., 1940-10-27
Break Ankle Today,
Walk on t Tomorrow
Under New Surgery
Fractures Pinned With
Steel Rods and Patients
Use Limbs at Once
BY the Associated Press.

Use Limbs at Once
| BY the Associated Press.
LOUISVILLE, Oct. 26-Through
treatment developed by Dr. r.
Arnold Griswold, head Of the de-
partment of surgery of the Univers-
ity of Louisville School of Medicine,
and others, you can break your
ankle Monday and go walking Tues
day.
Some patients with fractures of
the thigh bone are walking 48 hours
after their injury. Conventional
treatment usually kept such patients
on their backs six weeks.
Others, with clean breaks in the
lower leg, normally confined to bed
for at least IA days, may leave the
hospital. walking, a day and
half later.
DR.. Griswold says if you break
both bones in your lower leg you
can expect to be on your feet in
two days and out of the hospital in
eight and one-half days. Normally
such a misfortune would leave you
PROSTATE IS days.
For a nasty jagged thigh bone
break you would ordinarily spend
seven weeks looking at hospital
ceiling, but under DR.. Griswold's
treatment you can expect to leave
the hospital in seven days.
Here's How Treatment Works.
Clinical records show that for
these types of fractures hoSpitaliza-
ton has been reduced from IS to
eight and one-half days and from
SIS to seven days.
Here is how the treatment works
"Skeletal pins"-steel rods-are
driven through parts of your skele-
ton to exert pressures that will
bring the broken ends of bone to-
gether: they also act as weight
bearers when the patient walks.
The steel rods are approximately
one-eighth of an inch in circum-
ference and are hammered through
a bone in precisely the same way a
carpenter drives q nail. Nor Is
there any previous incision of the
flesh: this is to insure a snug fit
around the pin and to reduce
chances of infection.
The procedure is relatively simple.
Pins Driven Through Bone.
First the ends of the fracture are
brought close together. A local
anaesthetic deadens all pain in the
injured leg. Then a pointed steel
pin is set next to the skin, and one
blow of a small metal hammer
drives it through the flesh to a rest
ing place on the bone.
A half dozen more blows send 1t
| through the bone and still another
puts it through the flesh on the op-
posite side. The procedure is re-
peated for other pins. In most
cases about an inch Of steel rod
is left sticking out from each side
of the leg.
A Horoscope aids the doctor in
watching the progress Of the pin.
The protruding ends are incor-
porated in the plaster -of-paris cast
which is next applied. The cast
used differs greatly from the huge,
old-type padded ones. In the first
place it is unpadded and applied di-
rectly on the skin of the leg. Only
light dressing is needed for the
usual wounds Of compound frac-
lures.
Severe wounds are thoroughly
cleaned and packed with an anti
septic gauze dressing on top Of
which the plaster-of- paris is ap-
piled.
Unpadded Cast Better.
The advantage of the non-padded
cast is the fact that the fracture
surfaces are held together much
more strongly than was the case
with the padded cast which allowed
some motion within the cast and
often times caused sores and in
some cases resulted in shortening Of
the limbs or other deformities.
After the cast is dry walking
heel' is fitted. The heel consists
of an ordinary piece Of scrap iron
fashioned into a "U."
Walking on the broken leg is &C
tually good for it, although to be
q little more exact you don't actually
walk on the fracture. Weight Is
borne by the tightly fitting cast,
above the point of fracture.
DR.. Griswold said removal Of the
pins and cast Is done with little
pain.
He emphasizes these new fracture
treatments are not strictly his own
inventions. They are new in the
sense that they climax long series
of developments that started in the
World War. He and the University
of Louisville staff have simply de-
veloped perfected and improved the
techniques.
Similar ideas were used with
great success during the Spanish
Civil War, the doctor said, and even
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