In 1898, J. Poland very completely and thoroughly discussed traumatic separations of the lower radial epiphyses. Eight years later two masterly treatises dealing entirely with injuries to the lower radial epiphysis appeared in the Paris Theses: one by Metenier and the other by Bonta. Not until 1922 and 1924, with the reports of M. K. Smith, does this subject again attract attention in the literature.
ANATOMY
The lesion dealt with here is one in which there is a solution of continuity in the radius at its lower extremity, and all, or at least part, of the line of separation passes through the cartilaginous plate of the epiphysis. The resultant condition fulfils the requirements of, and should be called, a fracture instead of a separation or dislocation.One knows that the longitudinal growth of a long bone is due to a proliferation of the tissue at and adjoining the epiphyseal cartilage,