There are two cases of spontaneous amputation worthy of record.
Boerhaave mentions a peasant near Leyden, whose axillary artery
was divided with a knife, causing great effusion of blood, and
the patient fainted. The mouth of the vessel was retracted so far
as to render ligature impossible, and the poor man was abandoned
to what was considered an inevitable fate by his unenlightened
attendants. Expecting to die every moment, he continued several
days in a languid state, but the hemorrhage ceased spontaneously,
and the arm decayed, shrunk, and dried into a mummified stump,
which he carried about for quite a while. Rooker speaks of a
fracture of the forearm, near the lower part of the middle third,
in a patient aged fourteen. Incipient gangrene below the seat of
fracture, with associate inflammation, developed; but on account
of the increasing gangrene it was determined to amputate. On the
fifth day the line of demarcation extended to the spine of the
scapula, laying bare the bone and exposing the acromion process
and involving the pectoral muscles. It was again decided to let
Nature continue her work. The bones exfoliated, the spine and the
acromial end of the scapula came away, and a good stump was
formed.
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