US101743A - Improvement in splints for fractured limbs - Google Patents

Description

GEORGE S. KING, OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Letters Patent No. 101,743, dated April 12, 1870.

IMPROVEMENT IN SPLINTS FOR FRACTI'JRED LIMBS.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To all whom yit may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE S. KING, of Washington, in the District of Columbia, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Splints to Set Fractured Limbs and Knee-Caps, and straighten crooked limbs of children; and do hereby declare that the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying plates of drawings,'hereinafter referred to, forms a full and exact specification of the same, wherein I have set forth the nature and principles of said improvement, by which my invention may be distinguished from others of' a similar class, together with such parts as I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent.

The nat-ure of my invention consists iu the use of spring-tempered hard rubber, for fracture-splints and straightening crooked limbs, and analogous cases or purposes to which it may be applied, several of which uses to which it may be put being shown by the accompanying drawings, Figures l, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, andalso in combining with the apparatus a graduated metallic fastening, as described below.

Figs. 3 and 4 show a modication to be used as splints to set fractured limbs, being bivalvular cases fastened together behind, or at one side, by means of metallic hinges c c, an'd adjusted and opened in front orl at the sides, as the case may be, by means of graduated clasps e e, or other fastenings, thereby obviating the use of bandages and fracture-boxes, as far as desired; also enabling patients to walk earlier after fracture than they otherwise could.

Another modification is seen in ligs. 1 and 2, and is a biva-lvular case, of similar construction with those for fractured limbs, iigs. 3 and 4, fig. 2 representing the disconnected halves of the case, and fig. 1 represents it as closed.

When the edges of the bivalvular case can `be brought into perfect coaptation without being sprung over a limb under treatment for curvature, the limb must of necessity have resumed its normal axis.

Another modication is a new splint, figs. 5 and 6, to set fractured knee-caps, constructed of four half rings or semicil'cles, to be hinged' behind by a ring hinge of the following description, viz: A single metallic ring, passing through four smaller rings, fastened respectively at the posterior ends of the four semicircles d d l d. -Tbe whole apparatus to beadjusted to the knee by-fastening the semicircles in front, any two at a time, as the direction of the frac: ture may require, and then adjusting the two parts thus composed, all the fastenings being accomplished `by means of adj u stablevclasps O C, mounted ou the anterior aspects of the semicircles d ll-d d, or by other fastenings.

Graduated clasps for fastening and adjusting the bivalvular cases are shown in Figures 7 and 8. A conical metallic tongue, a., of proper dimensions, projects from edge of one bivalvular case or semicircle to iit into its'fellow, having a small cone projecting at right angles from one side at its end.

A' house, b, of proper'dimensions, fixed upon the opposite half of the case or semicircle, its longestdiameter at right angles to that of the splits for fractured `long bones and crooked limbs, but so fixed on the knee-cap splints as to adjust the four semicircles together in front, the said house to receive metallic tongues a, and to be traversed in its shortest diameter by four or mre metallic wires a', in a row half way between itsdmiddle line and one side; these wires to serve as abutments for small cone at cud of tongue; the intervals between thc wires to receive the same when adjusted; the house has also a slot through its top along the long diameter, half way from the middle, and the side opposite to that side near which the row of wires is.

Metalliobolt c, truncated cone-shaped, the conicality to correspond with space between side of house, near whichslot is, and' tongue' a, when adjusted in house; said boltto 'be pierced at its middle by a setscrew; and to pass on top of tongue a, when adj usted between wire abutments, so that the tongue will be' immovable. The whole clasp, when adjusted to hold together the halves of the bivalvular case of the semicircles of the knee-cap splint, until uui'astened at will.

Having described my invention and improvements,

That I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The use of spring-tempered hardrubber-inthe construction of splints and bivalvular cases, and kneecap splints, lfor the gradual straightening of crooked limbs and the setting ot' fractured limbs, as hereinabove described.

2. In combination. with the hard-rubber bivalvular case above described, the adjustable graduated fastening, for the purposes described.

GEO. S. KING. [L.-S..]

Witnesses:

' II. A. DANIELS,

H. J. SLYE.

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