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The Breaking Strain of the Ribs of the Insane

An analysis of a series of fifty-eight cases tested with an instrument specially devised by Dr. C. H. Mercier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Alfred W. Campbell*
Affiliation:
County Asylum, Rainhill, Lancashire

Extract

In the spring of 1893 we received from Dr. Mercier an instrument specially devised by that gentleman for the purpose of automatically registering the breaking strain of the human rib. It was accompanied by a letter, in which we were requested to experiment with the instrument on as many cases as possible and furnish him with the result. By that letter we were at the same time informed that he had sent similar instruments round to other asylums with a like supplication, and that he looked for the co-operation of a number of colleagues in enabling him to collect a number of cases sufficient to constitute a foundation for an accurate statistical record—a record which would, among other things, settle once and for all in which varieties of mental disorder it is that we are to look for ribs possessing a low breaking strain.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1895

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References

Paper read at the Quarterly Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association in London, on November 15th, 1894.Google Scholar

This is merely a provisional standard founded on an experimental examination of the eighth ribs of six sane cases dying in hospital either of accidental injuries or rapidly fatal disease.Google Scholar

The average of five sane females dying in hospital of acute diseases.Google Scholar

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