Of a locked-jaw

Of a locked-jaw, in St. Bartholomcw’s Hospital, in her 33d year, Mrs. Mary Newton, wife of Mr. N. baker of Enfield. On the Saturday preceding she had undergone a painful amputation of the right thigh, near the hip joint; which, till the fatal symptom of trismus took place, had every appearance of terminating happily. The operation was performed with great skill, tenderness, and humanity, by Mr. Ramsdeu, with the assistance of Sir Charles Blicke, Sir James Earle, Mr. Abernethy, Dr. Sherwin, and Mr. Clark, surgeon of Enfield, and several other gentlemen, whose curiosity had been excited by the singularity of the case. A tumour, intimately connected with a diseased state of the bone (a spiculous kind of exostosis), occupying nearly the whole of the thigh, had gradually increased, during seven or eight years, to an enormous magnitude, weighing upwards of forty pounds. While this swelling was in progress, she had been the mother of three children, all now living, the eldest three years old, and the youngest two months. We understand that a cast has been taken of the limb in plaster of Paris; but we regret that it had not been previously injected, because there can be no doubt that the pressure of so large a tumour must have rendered the femoral artery completely impervious, and, consequently, that the limb, together with the great mass of sebaceous accumulation, must have been for some years supplied with the necessary circulation by the anastomosing branches alone. This would have added one to the cases on which the Medical Spectator founded his proposal for curing the poplitaeal aneurism, by an improvement in the application of the tourniquet, thereby obviating the necessity of the very painful and dangerous separation at first proposed by the late John Hunter. We hope this may serve as a call upon the author of that useful and entertaining work, the Medical Spectator, to complete his third volume, which he appears to have abandoned in so unaccountable a manner.