In the past quarter century, spanning the years 1919 to 1943, fracture of the neck of the astragalus has received but scant attention. The few reported end results have been discouraging. A search of the literature over this period reveals not more than seventy-five papers dealing with this injury. These contributions, for the most part, are in the foreign literature.
Most of these reports record isolated instances of fracture of the astragalar neck because of its rarity. The commonly employed therapy has been total or partial astragalectomy. This form of treatment in the case of an adult is an admission of inadequacy surpassed only by amputation.
In the English literature of these same years there have been twenty-one treatises on fracture involving the neck of the astragalus. Seventeen reports have been from the United States; four have been from Great Britain. Again, the majority of these papers have value only